


Castle Walls

by Stormlyht



Series: The Unicorn!Shane Verse [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood, Communication, I'm of course talking TJ, M/M, More Communication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sex Magic, Sort of? - Freeform, Unicorn!Shane, Violence, using people I don't know very well to suit my needs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:19:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormlyht/pseuds/Stormlyht
Summary: Shane has been looking for evidence of other creatures for a long time now, but it seems like he's the only one left.  It's a good thing he's got Ryan around to keep him company.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abovetheruins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheruins/gifts).



> Okay, so, this is my second foray into Buzzfeed Unsolved fanfiction, and it's at least mostly the fault of [abovetheruins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheruins/pseuds/abovetheruins). They wrote this amazing little story that had a unicorn in it and it made me thing... wait... I don't think I've read anything or see any tags where either of the boys is a unicorn, and thus this was born. You're welcome?
> 
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine, I intend to update this at least once a week. Also, I have a strange mix of music that I've listened to while writing this, and the title is from one of those songs. Who here has ever heard [Castle Walls by Styx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09l_zXCQpik)? The lyrics actually make sense to Shane in this, in a way. I'm hopeful it'll make sense or the title of this story will be an epic fail.
> 
> There will be 2 books or more to this, because I'm trying to break things up instead of having one massive story that becomes unwieldy. You know, like No Going Back (to those who read my TW stuff). I will be updating tags, but there will be violence in later parts because apparently I like that stuff. Enjoy.

“So there isn’t a specific question about this, more that there were several people who commented on what you said during this investigation,” Ryan said with a grin and Shane rolled his eyes.

“Oh here we go,” Shane mumbled. “Is this about the demon comment? Guys,” Shane said as he stared right into the camera. “There is no such thing as demons.”

Ryan laughed and nudged him with his elbow. “The fans want to know if you were scaring all the demons off, because you’re a bigger and badder demon than they are.”

“Demon’s aren’t real,” Shane said with a sigh. He rolled his eyes and looked down at the phone in front of him. “You know that, right?”

“Demons are very real,” Ryan protested. “You know I feel that way.”

“Yeah, and I know you’re wrong.” Shane’s eyes caught on the date and he sighed again. He was actually pretty sure demons didn’t exist, not anymore. Today marked the 100th year he’d been wandering around in human form and he’d yet to see any evidence they were still here.

“I’m not wrong. There’s so much lore, so many things that point to them being a real thing.”

“Yes, because lore and legends are never wrong,” Shane grumbled. He leaned back in his chair. “Look, all I said was that I figured they all ran off because they saw me. Tall, gangly, big headed Shane Madej, not some strange demon version of Shane Madej you all are unsubtly focused on.”

Ryan laughed and Shane had to look away from it all. As if a demon would ever get close to Shane if they did exist. He was too pure for them, too… Rolling his eyes he stared at the wall. The whole thing was ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as him being so annoyed over the comments in the first place.

“Well, I don’t think you’re a demon,” Ryan said when he settled down and Shane nodded in his general direction. “But you are pretty scary when you want to be.”

“Yes,” Shane said as he looked over at Ryan. “Terrifying. I’m a lanky scarecrow with floppy hair, nothing in the world is more scary.”

Brows furrowing, Ryan reached out a hand and touched Shane’s arm. “Are you okay?” he asked softly and Shane shrugged. “You’re… I mean… usually there’s more… you know?”

“What?” Shane snapped, standing up and moving away from the table. “Usually I play along with the ridiculousness and now that I’m not it’s strange? Yes, I’m tired of reading it all, like I would even…” he stopped himself before he said something he’d regret. His arms lifted and wrapped around himself. “It’s just a bad day for this bit,” he said softly. “Can we just drop it out?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ryan said instantly and he was behind Shane in a moment, one hand lightly touching Shane’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Do we need to take the whole thing out? Are you… are you okay?”

“I’m fine Ryan,” Shane said in exasperation although he leaned back into Ryan’s touch just so he could feel the warmth of it.

“Okay.” Ryan knew by now that when Shane got like this he didn’t really want to talk about it, and Shane was really glad for that. Years of working together had allowed for certain things, and this was one of them.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and he could feel Ryan shaking his head.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. We’ll edit around it and cut it. No big deal.” Ryan’s hand squeezed Shane’s shoulder and then he moved away.

“Ry?” Shane whispered and Ryan paused. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Ryan said. “Go take a minute, I’ll talk to TJ and then we’ll get back into it, okay?”

“Yeah.” Shane nodded and let his arms fall down as he slipped out of the Unsolved set.

*

The thing was, he was certain he wasn’t the only creature still alive, but he’d been actively looking for a long time and hadn’t found anything. He had thought he’d just lost some sort of message or something. “Hey, we relocated to *this* place, come and chill!” But he’d never found the place, and he’d never found a message and he’d been over a certain amount of the Earth at this point and he was starting to think that he was wrong about his assumptions. It was possible they were underwater, but he doubted they all were. All flying creatures underwater? No way. The water creatures, maybe some earth ones, but not the air, not the fire, not the mixes.

Which left him with the question, once more, where the fuck were they? He wasn’t living some “Last Unicorn” bullshit. There was no way he was the last, the only out and free. Shane hadn’t gone for that long of a sabbatical. Yet here he was, alone as far as he could tell, and looking. Joining Unsolved seemed like a good way to travel and look for signs of others. Still, nothing so far. It was frustrating beyond belief. The only thing that made sense was to drink, which was what he was doing when there was a knock at his apartment door.

With a sigh, he stood up and walked over, opening the door and blinking at Ryan, who was standing on the other side with a smile and a six pack of one of the beers Ryan hated but Shane loved.

“Hey,” he said. “I come bearing gifts.”

“So you do,” Shane agreed. He stepped off to the side so Ryan could enter and watched Ryan slip in, take off his shoes and walk into the kitchen. Ryan had been in his apartment so often that he knew where everything was.

“I thought you’d be home alone, moping over whatever it is that’s bothering you so I figured I’d give you company. Someone to poke fun at you when you get maudlin.” Ryan put the beer in the fridge and pulled out a cold can of whatever terrible thing he liked to drink which only existed in Shane’s fridge because Ryan came to visit a lot.

“I’m not maudlin,” Shane said with an airy sniff and Ryan snorted.

“Sure you aren’t.” He opened his beer and slipped into Shane’s living room, grabbing controllers and sitting down on the couch. “Star Wars?”

“Sure,” Shane said with a nod as he came over and sat next to Ryan. Ryan navigated through menu’s and as familiar words began scrolling across the screen he finally turned to look at Shane.

“You gonna talk about it?” he asked and Shane shrugged.

“There’s nothing to say,” Shane said. “I’m just in a bad mood today.”

“That might work on people who don’t know you, but that’s not me. I know what you’re like, and there’s something specific that’s bothering you. Now you don’t have to tell me, you never do, but don’t fucking pretend I can’t tell the difference between a mood and something more.” He had a frown on his face and Shane sighed. 

“Fine, it’s personal.” Shane looked away from Ryan just so he didn’t cave and tell Ryan all about it. “I can’t talk about it. It’s just… an anniversary of something that went wrong.”

“Bad breakup?” Ryan asked and Shane shook his head.

“A choice. I made a choice a long time ago and it hasn’t worked out in my favor. That’s all.”

“That sounds much lighter than the look on your face would suggest,” Ryan said. He poked Shane in the side. “What kind of choice?”

“It’s personal.” He couldn’t tell Ryan. It wasn’t something he could explain easily, and he’d been hiding for so long that he wasn’t even sure he could shift anymore.

“Yeah, I got that part.” Ryan leaned back and stretched out his legs. “I guess I just feel like you should be pretty comfortable telling me just about anything.”

“Is that what you think?” Shane asked with a sly grin, wicked amusement winning over his bad mood. It was always fun to poke at Ryan.

“Yes, I do.” Ryan lifted his eyebrow at Shane. “You don’t?”

“Even if it’s something like, I think you’re hot as sin and want to take you to my bed?” Shane teased and then took in a breath when Ryan’s eyes widened.

“Uh,” Ryan managed to say, swallowing loud enough to hear. “That… um, I mean, yeah, if you feel that way, then… sure, you should feel like you can tell me.” He cleared his throat and Shane could feel heat slip under his skin.

“Yeah?” This was certainly better than dwelling on the past. Shane leaned forward a little, smirking and letting his eyes close a little bit. “And if I wanted to kiss you? What would you say?”

Ryan swallowed again and Shane found it endearing actually. He was so easy to rile up and he was about to pull away when Ryan reached for him and pulled Shane close, pressing his mouth to Shane’s.

The world stopped for a moment as Shane’s brain tried to process the new feelings. Ryan’s body was so warm and Shane had been interested in the other man, but Ryan had seemed like he didn’t feel the same way, and never would. There was nothing that would have clued Shane in to this desire.

Pulling away quickly, face flushed, Ryan licked his lips and managed to say, “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Shane said with a nod and Ryan let go of Shane and groaned.

“Fuck, I’m so stupid,” Ryan said and Shane put down his bottle.

“It was a joke because I didn’t think you’d be interested.” He reached out and slipped his hands under Ryan’s chin, tilting Ryan’s head up. “But I’m more than intrigued Ryan. How did you manage to keep this from me?”

“I…” Ryan frowned. “What are you talking about? You don’t want this, don’t play me Shane.”

“I’d like to play *with* you Ryan,” Shane said as he leaned close and pressed his lips lightly against Ryan’s. “I didn’t expect you wanted this, but I am all in if you are.”

“You are?” Ryan breathed. “Swear you aren’t joking.”

“I swear,” Shane said. Then he actually kissed Ryan, one hand sliding down Ryan’s neck, the other gently sliding into Ryan’s hair. He opened his mouth and Ryan’s tongue met his own, twining around, slipping into each of their mouths, the two beer tastes mingling. It was one of the hottest kisses Shane had had in a very long time.

After a few moments of mapping teeth and sliding across the roof of Ryan’s mouth, they each pulled away to breathe. “You… I…” Ryan shook his head as he failed to say anything.

“Yeah, I can think of some ways to change my mood,” Shane said and Ryan flushed again.

“Okay,” he said. He stood up, reached for Shane’s hand and tugged him to his feet. “But I’m not doing this in the living room.”

“That seems fair.” Shane reached for the controller to turn off the movie and tv, and then he let Ryan guide him to his own bedroom.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter is brought to you by the song "Whispering Hills" by Yuki Kajiura from the anime "Noir" [soundtrack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noir_\(TV_series\)#Soundtrack). I would totally have linked to it, but I can't find it anywhere to do so. Basically there's a lot of wind instrument whistling with some soft voice and keyboard music making it all seem like you're kind of exploring a forest. I highly recommend both the anime "Noir" as well as the soundtrack. Some of the sweetest music, and some of the most heartbreaking as well. Plus there's this awesome song that I call the ["killing music"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDs_PZaSkFo) because it always played when they were murdering people and it's just amazing. (Noir is about a team of female assassins.)
> 
> Anyway, enough promoting anime, on with the story! (no, really, the soundtrack is great and I listen to it *a* *lot* when writing. You'd be amazed by how versatile one soundtrack can be. I write to Noir and .Hack/Sign music a ton.)
> 
> This forest is a ["real forest!"](https://stateparks.com/morgan_monroe.html) I haven't been there, and I shamelessly know not a whole lot about it but the pictures inspired feelings so I went with it. The ["cabin"](https://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/7698.htm) they're staying in is also a real cabin that is rented out, very cool! This is a supposedly haunted forest, but it just looks beautiful to me. I kinda wanna go.

“So we’re here,” Ryan said, grinning at the camera. “A place reported to be incredibly haunted, and looking around, I can see why.” Ryan panned around and Shane just smiled.

“It’s very beautiful out here,” Shane said. “Peaceful, lovely, I mean, look at that rich greenery.” He motioned to a thick swath of trees and Ryan chuckled.

“Yeah, murder greenery,” Ryan said and Shane rolled his eyes.

“When did greenery ever attack you Ryan?” Shane asked. “Really, tell me, I want to know. Did it touch you wrong one time and now you’re convinced it’s going to eat you alive?”

“One never knows,” Ryan said with a lowered voice and wide eyes. “These woods hold the secret to many disappearances, multiple deaths, and a cabin reportedly so haunted that no one can sleep in it.”

“Uh huh.” Shane rolled his eyes.

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’re at Morgan-Monroe State Forest in Indiana as part of our ongoing investigation into the question, are ghosts real?” Ryan said happily and Shane shook his head with a roll of his eyes.

*

Truth be told the woods felt really calm to him. The distant sound of running water made him feel right at home deep in his bones, and the smells… oh, it was fantastic the way they tickled his nose, leaving him with a desire to run. It had been a long time since Shane had a good run. There weren’t many opportunities anymore to do so, and even less motivation. When he first took on human form he did it out of necessity. It was incredibly hard to wander around in human infested areas looking like a huge horse with a horn attached to his head. The more time he spent with humans, the less he really wanted to slip back to his pure form. Now that it had been so long, he had begun to think he wouldn’t be able to do it at all anymore.

The way this forest felt though, he kind of thought maybe he could. Maybe he would be able to just…. Slip back to his pure form and frolic in the moss, smell the damp leaves, chase squirrels and jump over rivers and streams. His legs were twitching with the need to move and his hands were flexing around the camera equipment he had in his hands. It was a feeling that thrummed under his skin. He couldn’t help the grin that spread out on his lips and when he looked at Ryan, Ryan was looking at him with a furrowed brow.

“You okay there big guy?” Ryan asked and Shane nodded his head.

“These are some woods!” he said with a chuckle. “Smells great. So, are we going?”

“Yeah.” Ryan shook his head a little and then began walking. “So, let me tell you about what’s happened here.”

It was hard to pay attention to Ryan as they walked because Shane could hear so many noises. All the sounds he usually managed to ignore because he lived in a city were echoing right through his body. Each time they did a show in the woods he had a hard time focusing on what Ryan was saying, but this time was especially bad. He couldn’t stop hearing the chattering of chipmunks, the sounds of birds talking to each other, the crunch of leaves underfoot. Forms zipped through the colorful rays of sun that slipped through the tree leaves, some birds, some bugs, some dust. Tracks of all kinds dotted the trail and the dirt around it, making everything about this forest seem alive, right down to the low hum of the earth itself that Shane always equated with magic. Whatever else this place was, it was powerful.

Everything was just so alive, and Shane’s skin tingled with it. He wanted to strip down bare to feel that life against him. He wanted to run off after nothing at all just so he could touch the ground with his hooves. It had been so long since he’d wanted this, since his entire being felt electrified with the desire to live and exist in a moment of time just for the sake of doing it.

“Which is why we’re staying at this cabin,” Ryan said as he paused and Shane ran right into him.

“Oof,” Shane said, stepping back. He reached for Ryan to make sure he didn’t knock him over and gave Ryan a small smirk. “Sorry. Got lost looking around.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Ryan said with a laugh. He reached up and pulled a leaf out of Shane’s hair. “Look at this, did you really not notice?” He twirled the leaf by the stem and Shane could smell it as it moved the air.

“Yeah, totally did not.” He chuckled. “It’s quite breathtaking, don’t you think?”

“Terrifying you mean?” Ryan asked as he looked at the cabin.

“No, not really.” Shane grinned and plucked the leaf out of Ryan’s fingers. “It just looks like a cabin in the woods.”

“Oh, now I feel better,” Ryan griped, shaking his head. “Okay. Let’s take a walk to see a few places, and then we’ll come back in the night.”

*

“Shane?” Ryan asked as they began to set up the camera’s for the night.

“Yeah?” Shane asked, glancing at Ryan.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” His voice wobbled a little and Shane frowned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Shane walked over to his bag and began pulling things out. The moonlight was coming in the window and it brushed against his skin, calling to him. He wanted to answer that call but how could he say that to Ryan? Sorry, I have to go run naked out in the woods for a little while because I love the feel of this place.

“-Just to know,” Ryan’s voice finally cut through Shane’s thoughts and Shane shook his head.

“Sorry Ry, I didn’t get that. Say again?”

Ryan blinked up at Shane, his face flushed. “Are *we* okay?” he said firmly, loudly.

“Yes?” Shane said, not at all sure what Ryan was talking about.

“Okay. Good. Fine.” Ryan huffed out a breath and Shane’s mind flashed momentarily to when Ryan had done that on his bed, naked and sweaty. Now Shane’s cheeks were flushing.

“Great.” Shane nodded and looked away.

It had been about a week since Ryan had come over and changed Shane’s idea’s about Ryan’s sexuality. A week and neither one of them had said a word about it. Ryan had woken up before Shane, taken a shower and then made food. Shane had felt amazing. Then Ryan left and never said a thing. He was perfectly himself at work, so Shane was himself, but in the back of Shane’s mind he kept wondering what Ryan was thinking, and if it was just a comfort blowjob. Maybe Shane had read too much into it, maybe Ryan didn’t want more than one night. Maybe Shane had been a terrible experience and Ryan didn’t want to tell Shane because that would be rude. He sighed and shook his head, the thoughts dampening his desire to rush out the window at least.

“Okay, I’m going to turn the lights out now,” Ryan said and Shane nodded.

“Great.” Shane ran a hand through his hair and then slipped into the bed. He didn’t look at Ryan, afraid of what emotion might be showing on his own face. “Night Bergara.”

“Night Madej,” Ryan said as he got into his own bed. There was silence for about ten seconds before Ryan gasped in a breath. “This doesn’t bother you?” he asked and Shane sighed.

“It’s the woods Ryan. Haven’t you ever sleep in the woods before?”

“I have,” Ryan said. He shifted and Shane shook his head.

“Go to sleep Ryan.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll see if I can’t sleep in the murder cabin.”

Several minutes went by and Shane was finally hopeful he might be able to slip away when Ryan spoke again.

“I can’t sleep.”

Shane groaned and turned over to look at Ryan. “Yes you can. You close your eyes and you tell yourself you’re tired and if that doesn’t work you count sheep. Start at 100 and count down.”

“That doesn’t sound boring at all,” Ryan laughed and Shane now knew what it was like to hear that laugh followed by a gasp, to kiss those lips until Ryan couldn’t breathe. Shane really needed to stop thinking about the fact that he now knew those things.

“I think that’s the point Ry,” Shane said and Ryan chuckled. Shane closed his eyes again. Miraculously, Ryan remained silent.

*

Ryan was asleep, finally. Shane knew it by the heaviness to Ryan’s breathing. He carefully slipped out of his bed, walking out of the room like he was going to the bathroom and exited the cabin entirely.

Once outside he could feel the moon on his skin and a soft glow began to lift from it. He felt so in his body right now, had since they’d walked into the forest, the feeling intensifying as the sun went down and the moon took it’s place. Once upon a time he’d had a forest he’d felt he belonged. It had dense trees, plenty of plant and animal life, water and sun and all the things that made a person comfortable. That place had felt like what he’d believed home felt like. These woods had the same feeling and Shane loved it.

He’d taunted the woods for Ryan’s benefit when they had walked, but it had been hard to keep the act when really he just wanted to hop around and fling his arms wide, feeling the wind on his skin. If the camera didn’t pick up on the difference between what he had been feeling and what he’d been saying he’d be shocked.

Now though, now there was no camera, no Ryan, only the woods, the moon and himself. He dashed into them, feeling the soft squelch of almost-mud dirt in between his toes and grinning madly over it. His eyes searched for a bush and with swift movements he stripped off all his clothes, folding them and tucking them under the bush. This was close enough to the cabin that he’d be able to find them again so he could dress before going back inside.

The air kissed his skin as he walked, the moon called to him, and he finally let himself truly *feel*. Here was life and light. Here was death and rebirth. Here was a cycle that never stopped. He stepped and remembered the bunch of muscles in his shoulders. His feet felt the earth and thanked it, each step reaching through him. In between one breath and the next he was running, and one more breath before his feet and hands were hooves. His hair grew to a mane of impressive light and weight, his neck lengthened, his face changed. This was the reason for living, right here. When the alicorn grew from his forehead he heard the woods singing with it, magic and life cycling from himself to the woods and back.

In this moment everything was perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter brought to you by 2 songs. The first is [Racing Against the Sunset by Philip Wesley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZt6DEycNAQ) and the second is [Dark Night of the Soul by Philip Wesley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSymJl1czYs). In fact this [entire album](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwu-smR1Fpb1tEM5hRgakp1GDOLeMSMoV) is pretty good and really great for writing. For some reason the playlist is inverted so the last song is first and the first is last, but still. Good music.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway! Enjoy!

“Whooooo?” a voice said in the dark and Ryan sat upright with a gasp.

“I… I don’t know?” he said to nothing and no one. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes. How had he fallen asleep anyway, and when? Looking over at the other bed to bother Shane, he noticed that Shane wasn’t there. The sheets were rumpled, pillow on the ground, but no Shane. “Shane?” he called out but there was no answer. If he was honest with himself he’d admit that the entire cabin sounded ominously silent, deathly still. He didn’t like that.

Ryan’s heart began to pound more firmly in his chest, a sick feeling coming over him. What if something had happened to Shane, Ryan would never forgive himself. He’d pestered and poked at Shane until Shane had agreed to come out here. This was a place Ryan wanted to go to that Shane had told him again and again there was nothing out here. Ryan knew there was something, and Shane had finally agreed. What if that was Ryan’s last mistake? “Shane?” he called out a little louder, voice shaking now. “Where are you?”

No answer still, and Ryan slipped out of the bed, going over to pat down the bed. It was obvious that Shane wasn’t there, but maybe there was a clue, or something to tell him where Shane had gone? No luck. Ryan went to the side table and sent off a text to Shane, but the chime alert came from inside the room and he turned to see Shane’s phone sitting on the other side table.

“Fuck,” Ryan whispered. “Shaaaane?” he called again, but he still didn’t hear anything. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Eyes wide, heart hammering, he grabbed the small camera and turned it on. “So,” he said with a waver in his voice. “Shane’s missing. I don’t know where he went, but since he’s not here, I guess I have to go find him.” He reached for his shoes and grabbed a flashlight, stepping out of the cabin with trepidation. There was little he liked more than creeping out of a murder cabin into murder woods in the middle of the night to search for his friend that might have been murdered.

The air was soft against his skin, a light breeze lifting the hair on his arms. Above him the moon was shining brightly, illuminating the space so well he almost didn’t need the flashlight. He was going into the woods though, and it was bound to be darker in there.

“It’s about four in the morning,” he said breathlessly to the camera as he began walking into the woods. “There’s no one around but me, and I can’t imagine that Shane would have gone far.” He swallowed and panned the video all over, flashlight on, light showing him the way. Under the cover of trees it was so much darker. All the dark. Over dark. He had a hard time getting air into his lungs he was so sacred, and usually this was a place where Shane would poke fun at him and he’d manage to relax a little because the big idiot was around. “I’m gonna follow this path a little while, see where it leads me. I’m not going to call out, because that’s a surefire way of drawing attention to myself and that’s not something I want to do.” He chuckled but shook his head. “I’m fucking terrified though. Just in case you were wondering.”

A loud snap came from behind him and Ryan turned with a shriek to see a raccoon run across the pathway. “Son of a bitch!” he gasped out, one hand holding onto his chest as his heart tried to pound out of his body by way of his throat. He gasped and leaned over, breathing heavily. “Son of a bitch, goddamn, I can’t even with how stupid this is. If I die, it’s all Shane’s fault, I’m calling it right now. Fucking hell.” He took several moments to breathe before he could stand up fully again. Every part of him was shaking in dread but he knew he had to keep going, he hadn’t found Shane yet. With one last deep breath he started walking again.

The moonlight slipped through the trees in several places and after a while of finding nothing but the normal things you’d expect to find in a forest, he rounded a clump of trees and could suddenly hear water. There were several streams throughout the park, he had no idea which one he could be near. He hadn’t thought to take anything to drink with him though, and he was now incredibly thirsty, which led his feet towards the sound of the water. The trees opened up several feet around the stream in a wide clearing, and standing there was something he’d never seen before in his life. Sliding from his numb fingers to the ground, the flashlight flickered off when it touched earth, plunging the area into moonlit, serene beauty. Ryan had thought he couldn’t breathe before, but now all thoughts of doing so left alongside the action itself.

Standing there, head tilted up as if to accept the moonlight that was focused on it like a spotlight, was a unicorn. It’s skin gleamed so bright the entire clearing was bathed in a soft white glow, as though the light it was getting was being intensified. Pure silver strands slid down the head and neck, one perfectly white ear flickering through the thickness of it, and occasionally the tail flicked from one side to the other, same beautiful silver hair falling like silk threads. Standing proudly on the unicorn’s forehead was a long, silver and gold twisted horn, straight and strong, ending at a wicked looking point. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, the entire space seemed frozen in time, the beast’s eyes were closed, as if it was nothing more than a statue.

Tears began to slid down Ryan’s cheeks without thought or rational reasoning. One shaking hand lifted the camera he was still gripping tightly. This was proof. Right here, in front of him wasn’t a hallucination or a dream, it was actual proof of the supernatural, and Ryan Bergara was going to get footage. If he could just point the camera in the right direction. If he could just get beyond the awe and wonder that was flooding his entire body. In front of him was a magnificent creature, something that he had never expected to see in his lifetime. Slowly, carefully, difficultly, he brought the camera to pan over the unicorn’s body. Now it was recorded. Proof.

A soft sob slipped out of his mouth and the tears rushed over his cheeks again. As he stared through the camera at the unicorn, it’s eyes opened and it’s head turned to look right at Ryan.

“Fuck,” he breathed, staring into the gentle and breathtaking blue-silver eyes. “I… I…” He couldn’t speak, couldn’t form coherent thoughts and he finally put down the camera again, looking up at the creature as it began to walk over to Ryan. Each step felt heavy on the earth, silent but echoed through his body. It was almost like he was moving with the unicorn even as he stood still. “Oh fuck,” he whispered, eyes going wide. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.” The unicorn snorted and lowered his head, the horn pointed right towards Ryan now. His eyes almost seemed amused but Ryan wasn’t sure if that was real or just his imagination playing with him.

He couldn’t help the steps back he took, but that was all he got before he was suddenly pressed up against a tree, nowhere else to go. Not with the unicorn still advancing on him. He didn’t want to die, and that horn looked very deadly. If he were to die here there was no one who would know where to look for the camera. No, worse than that, if he died, he’d never know what had happened to Shane! Shane could be out here alone, unaware that there was a fucking unicorn running around. Eyes widening with fear, he swallowed and attempted to look away from the gaze of the unicorn, but he couldn’t. It was like they were growing, becoming all Ryan could focus on, all Ryan could see. He almost didn’t see it when the horn was right there in his face, the tip gently touching his forehead.

Once more everything was still. Neither of them moved, the forest was silent. He was just beginning to wonder if he had died and was stuck in this moment of question for the rest of eternity when the unicorn snorted again and stepped back. He shook his mane and then reared up, turning to bound back into the forest. Any control it had on Ryan was snapped like puppet strings, and he slid down the tree to the ground, sucking in deep breath after deep breath because it seemed like there was no air in his body at all.

That had happened. For real, he’d seen a unicorn, and he’d gotten footage of it, and it’s horn had touched his forehead. He lifted a hand to touch where the horn had been but there was no blood, no pain, no injury at all. This had happened to him, and he couldn’t even believe it.

“Hey,” a voice said suddenly and Ryan screamed, flailing away from the noise with wide eyes and a pounding heart. His hands were digging into the ground as he started scrambling away from whatever or whoever was suddenly right there.

It was Shane, of course, and he was laughing, eyes crinkling, staring at Ryan with amusement etched into every line of his body. “What’s wrong Ryan? You look like you saw a ghooooo~ooooost!” Then he laughed again and Ryan picked up the nearest thing and flung it at Shane.

“You complete asshole!” Ryan cried out. The leaves he’d thrown didn’t go fall, but hopefully his message had gotten across.

“How am *I* the asshole?” Shane asked, crouching down. “You’re the one who freaked out.”

“I freaked out because I was just staring at a unicorn in haunted woods and you came out of fucking nowhere! I’m out here because of you! Where the hell have you been?” Ryan spoke quickly because he couldn’t not, voice raised because he also couldn’t control that. All of this had been overwhelming, and he wasn’t over it yet. He’d barely processed any of it.

“A unicorn?” Shane laughed so loud that Ryan thought the forest was maybe ringing with it. It was a good sound because Shane was making it, but it was a bad one because what if the unicorn came back and skewered Shane over it? “Sure buddy. Come on, let’s get you back to the cabin where you can stop dream walking.”

“I wasn’t dream walking Shane. I got it. I have…” he looked down at the camera in his hand, wonderfully excited about what he had. “I have proof!” He lifted the camera to point it at Shane. “I have proof!”

“Is that so.” Shane reached for Ryan and helped him to his feet. “Okay, sure. You can show me later though, when it’s not the middle of the night and in strange woods.” When Ryan was on his feet, Shane leaned over again and grabbed the flashlight. Ryan hadn’t even noticed how much darker the area was with the unicorn gone. “I’m surprised you didn’t get lost out here.”

“Yeah, me too. I mean, I maybe got lost, but… you’re not lost?” He was really confused on this part.

“Nah, I knew where I was. I just needed to get out, make a pee perimeter to keep the bears out of the cabin.” He grinned at Ryan and Ryan glanced around them.

“Oh fuck, I forgot about bears.” Now his heart was pounding for a different reason. Honestly, he was so overwhelmed he probably wasn’t going to sleep again until he was home, and that might be a good thing.

“Yeah,” Shane said with another little chuckle. “I bet you did.”

“I mean it about the unicorn though. It was… Shane it was beautiful! It stood in the moonlight and the light was just washing over it. It was so amazing, like… like a dream or something.”

“Maybe it was a dream.” Shane looked over at Ryan. “I didn’t think you were a sleepwalker, but I could be wrong.”

“I wasn’t sleepwalking,” Ryan said with a roll of his eyes. With Shane there it was easier to catch his breath, easier to come down from the strange high he’d been in.

“No? So you really think you saw a unicorn?” Shane laughed once more and Ryan was too out of it to notice the slight edge of hysteria attached to it. Instead, he nudged Shane with an elbow.

“I *know* I did. And I’m going to prove it to you.” Ryan couldn’t allow Shane’s disbelief stop him. He had seen it, it was real, and he was going to prove it to the world.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who here has played ["Child of Light"](https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/child-of-light/)? It's an AMAZING game, and it has such a [GREAT soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaTxFi804INY1IMdf9TzsgZN4rvvApCxS)! Today's chapter was edited to this fantastic song: [Woods Darker Than Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B--AiVaFJE&list=PLaTxFi804INY1IMdf9TzsgZN4rvvApCxS&index=14) Now if you listen to it before reading, well, you'll have a pretty good idea of what kind of mood this chapter is going to leave you in, so I'll leave it up to you guys to decide if you listen before or after (or ever). Heh... *sweatdrops*
> 
> I have no idea how they edit their footage, how it's all done, so we're just gonna go with what I've got here for this story. K? Great!

Shane sat at their table in the Unsolved set, laptop out, footage from the forest speeding through on fast forward, impatient and frustrated. It wasn’t easy getting his hands on the footage, because Ryan always got to look over it first. Once he had, then he passed things over to Shane, and then they’d meet to discuss what they wanted to put in the episode together. It had taken work to get to it first thing. If he was lucky, Ryan wouldn’t see that it was all uploaded for another hour or more.

He was beyond angry with himself. It was so easy for things to feel simple, perfect, when the moon was shining down on him, the forest alive and singing across his skin. The weight of years and years of growth hung on each branch, echoed across the moss and leaves as he gently stepped down. Running through it all had been a type of euphoria, breath coming in quick gasps, sweat sliding across his body, hooves pounding deep in the dirt. Everything was one, everything was right, there weren’t words to describe how he had felt.

Which was when he’d taken a break, drank some water, stood with his horn pointed up, feeling the magic of life all around him. He had let it seep into his bones, recharging his soul in ways he’d forgotten. Which was of course when Ryan had shown up. That too had felt right, felt obvious. Looking at him through his other sight was amazing. Lines of life trailing from him to the world around him and Shane had needed to touch. He shouldn’t have done it in the most intimate way he knew how, but Ryan was a part of him, had been for years, so it hadn’t needed thought to be done.

The air itself had seemed to be singing, and when his horn touched Ryan’s forehead Shane had touched Ryan’s magic, Ryan’s very essence. Harmony, brilliance, synergy, his core had lit up with it and he’d had to break after a moment, had to step away because all the feelings were too much to hold on to. Everything had felt right, but when he’d managed to transform back to human shape, his entire body had rung with alarm. There were so many things he’d done he shouldn’t have, and he had to go face Ryan without letting any of that show. It had been a miracle he’d made it through.

There was no way that Ryan hadn’t captured footage of Shane, he was aware of that. At the time Ryan could have been pointing that stupid water gun at Shane and he wouldn’t have even noticed, but now? Oh, now he knew and now he had to delete everything he could before Ryan saw it or his secret wouldn’t be safe. There’d be proof of the other, proof of things hidden and his mother had told him time and time again that there was only so much of that allowed. Besides, there hadn’t been proof in so long, as far as Shane could tell, and nothing solid in the digital age. Nothing beyond hints or glances, all of which could be explained away. Which was why he was here, staring at the screen in a bit of frenzied madness, waiting to find the right bits to delete.

He only had one shot at getting it all, so he carefully compiled what he could, hand hovering for a moment over the delete in anxious uncertainty. Was he really going to do this to Ryan, get rid of the proof that Ryan worked so hard for? Ryan was going to be devastated, his excitement gone in seconds, and it would be all Shane’s fault.

Looking at the screen, seeing his pure form in a way he never had before, he felt his heart start pounding hard and fast. His eyes filled with tears, unwelcome and uncontrollable. All unicorns were beautiful, it was their very nature, but he hadn’t seen another in a long time, which almost made this image hurt. A hand lifted and gently touched the screen, tracing the edge of his body in reverence.

Which was when the door opened and Ryan stepped into the room. “Hey,” he said in greeting and Shane stared up at him with wide eyes, the tears finally falling even as he could feel the guilt rush through his body. There was no way Ryan could miss that, one hand still touching the screen, the other hovering over the keyboard. “What’s…” Ryan trailed off as he looked between Shane’s hands. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” Shane gasped, standing and stepping away from the table and the laptop, one hand brushing the tears from his face. “Nothing, I… I was just… there… uh…” Usually words were his thing, he was good at using them, but right now, as he bounced between one extreme emotion to the next, he couldn’t find the right ones at all.

“That’s the footage of the unicorn,” Ryan said, stepping closer to look at the laptop. “That’s my proof.” He looked at Shane, eyes narrowing. “What were you going to do Shane?”

“I wasn’t… this…” He backed away again, so quickly the chair behind him fell over, clattering to the ground and almost echoing through the room. “Not what you think.” That was probably the worst thing to say, and Ryan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Whatever Ryan was thinking was probably actually true to what Shane had been trying to do. Ryan closed out of all the programs on Shane’s laptop, not saving a single thing, the footage unaltered. A strange sort of melancholy went through Shane as he watched Ryan do that, both excitement and fear slipping through his body. He had no idea what to do now.

“It isn’t? Oh good, because it *looked* like you were about to delete the unicorn proof.” He stood fully and crossed his arms over his chest, muscles flexing as he did so. That was distracting, and Shane was a little annoyed with himself that he watched the movement. “So what were you doing instead?”

“Fuck,” Shane whispered. It was as good as admitting everything to Ryan and he closed his eyes against the hurt that he knew was going to encompass Ryan’s expression. Now he was truly going to look like the demon that so many people claimed he was.

“No,” Ryan said slowly. “No Shane, that’s sure not going to happen again anytime soon. What the actual fuck?” It sounded like he couldn’t decide between which emotion he felt more, disappointed or angry. “Why the *hell* would you do that?”

Slowly, Shane opened his eyes and looked at Ryan. He had to handle this carefully, or he’d lose everything, he knew that. Ryan’s face was lightly flushed, his lips a hard line. Shane took in a breath and tried to order things in a reasonable manner. He needed to come up with something that would make sense, other than, ‘you can’t show footage of me in a unicorn outfit’.

“Look, I know you can’t understand why I was… looking at that footage, but I’m not… trying to make your experience any less, amazing or whatever, it’s just… I just don’t think that should be shown I guess.” He felt his own face flush. That was fairly obvious by what he had been doing. It wasn’t going to be enough though, Ryan would demand more, and Shane had to give it to him. If only the words would come, perfectly, like they usually did.

“Wait, you don’t think you want this footage to be seen?” Ryan looked at the computer and then back to Shane. “Have you fucking done this before?”

“What?” Shane gasped out, eyes widening. “No, of course not!”

“I mean, we’ve seen some pretty compelling stuff, and I didn’t think that I was missing anything, but you’re always going on about how you don’t think any of this is real so maybe… maybe you just think that you can get rid of it all and then you don’t have to deal with what’s really out there.” Ryan advanced on Shane and Shane stepped back. It seemed like Ryan had settled on an emotion, and that was anger. White hot and burning bright anger that was so tangible Shane winced away from it. All the blood was leaving his face, hiding away so fast he could feel it as his skin paled.

“No, Ryan I swear I’ve never, I would never-“ he babbled, hands lifting in surrender.

“You know, I wouldn’t have thought it of you before, but now? Now I don’t know.” Ryan stepped right into Shane’s space and leaned up. Shane reared back, stuck against a wall and unable to get away.

“Ryan I swear to God I have never deleted footage before in my life.” Ryan didn’t seem like he believed Shane and he had to do something to make this right. “I mean, okay, yes, I was going to this time. I was, and you’re right, it was wrong, but there are reasons why I was going to do it and if you knew then I think you would agree with me but-“

“But you weren’t going to even give me the option of knowing what those reasons were. You didn’t trust me enough to hear you out and do the right thing.” Ryan scoffed and stepped away, disgust winning over anger, his lip curved up in a way Shane really didn’t care for. “I can’t even fucking believe you Shane. Why… why wouldn’t you trust me? What the hell is so goddamned important that you would go behind my back to do something like this?”

“Him!” Shane said with a wave at the computer. “The… the unicorn. I’m trying to protect him.” Soon he was going to just blabber all the truths to Ryan and that wouldn’t work. No, he couldn’t. Enough of the truth to lead him on, but not all of it. He had to spin it just right somehow.

“Really?” Ryan shook his head. “Protect him from what? I mean, me? What the hell am I going to do to him?”

“Show the world proof he exists!” That forest had felt so right, everything about his experience there had been beautiful, he didn’t want to ruin that. How could he explain that to Ryan? Oh, yes, he had the words now. Shane was frantic with them, and he stepped forward, words coming in a rush. “If you show this, if people believe it, if they don’t think it’s shopped or anything like that, then they’re going to go to that forest and they’re going to look for him. They’re going to tromp all over, day and night, people with guns, people with tranquilizer darts, thrill seekers, cute little virgins or whatever. They’re going to hunt him until he’s backed into a corner, or until he finds some other space to go to in order to get away. What right do we have to take his refuge away from him?”

Shane’s hands were flailing in the air as he spoke, and Ryan opened his mouth, but Shane wasn’t done, he had to give Ryan more. “I saw it, okay? I watched it and I saw what he did, how he just… walked over to you and placed his horn on your forehead. That was… that was magical, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it amazing? Whatever happened, whatever happens next, that’s up to us. That’s… that’s our responsibility. If we show this footage, it’s like *we* are going to be responsible for his life. I don’t want that on my conscience Ryan. I don’t want to worry about him for the rest of my life. And the forest, if that’s where he lives? What about that? All the animals there, all the beautiful trails and everything, it’ll be trampled, it’ll be ruined for future generations and that… that’s just cruel.”

He gasped in a breath, all the words out now, rushed through him without thought. Now that he was stopped, he realized he was breathing hard, mouth dry. He also realized that tears were falling down his cheeks, his sight blurry with them. It was impossible to understand why he was so emotional. He didn’t live in that forest, why should he care so much about it anyway? Yet he’d felt so good there, and he didn’t want the experience tarnished by showing off his pure form like some sort of freak show.

For a while, Ryan just stared at him and Shane didn’t know what he was thinking. Usually Ryan was an open book to Shane, they’d spent so much time together that he knew so many tells, but right now Shane was clueless. In the strange, weighted silence, Shane lifted his hands to wipe away the tears. Since getting into his pure form again, he’d been more emotional, and he didn’t like it. Finally though, Ryan let his arms fall and he nodded at Shane.

“Okay,” Ryan said and Shane blinked at him.

“O…kay?” Shane asked and Ryan nodded again. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Okay. You could have just fucking told me that. You didn’t have to go behind my back to delete the footage, leaving me to wonder if I'd been crazy. You’re still an asshole, and I’m not okay with you right now, but I heard you. I get what you’re saying, and I’ll think long and hard about what you said and get back to you on it.”

“You… you aren’t going to show anyone else, are you?” Shane whispered and Ryan pursed his lips.

“This was *my* experience Shane, not yours. If I decide to show it to someone else, that’s my choice, and I’ll consider all the implications before I do so. I think you should leave right now though. And you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t trust you around any of this for a while.”

“No,” Shane said with a sigh. Every piece of him was hurting, from his heart to his body, tension holding him together and little else. “I understand. I’m sorry Ryan, I didn’t think -“

“That’s fucking right you didn’t think!” Ryan screamed out at him. Shane’s eyes got wide again as he stared at Ryan. “You didn’t think about *me*, you only thought about *you* and I don’t even fucking know why! This… this is *everything* I’ve been doing this show for! This is *everything* I’ve ever wanted to prove and you were going to just take it away from me! I can’t believe you! I can’t even… I…” He shook his head and pointed at the door. “You need to fucking leave right now Shane. You need to leave and I need to not see you for a couple days. Call out sick. I want to punch you so badly right now and if you don’t get out of my sight I can’t swear I won’t.”

“Okay.” Shane moved to the door, almost scared to slip past Ryan. He felt worse than he had in a very long time, all the anger with himself gone, despair left behind in its wake. This could be the end of everything, the end of his friendship with Ryan, the end of the show, the end of his time at Buzzfeed. If he lost all that he might go back to those woods, change form again, and forget all about being human. This was all his fault, and if he got a second chance, he wouldn’t fucking mess up like this again. “I’ll… I’ll call out until you tell me otherwise. I promise Ryan. I won’t… I won’t do anything.” His voice was very small and he rushed out of the room, just barely noticing the tiny nod that Ryan made as he slipped away.

He closed the door firmly when he left and leaned against it for a moment, just breathing. This was all fucked up, and he had no idea how to fix it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, I hope this turned out okay, I've had such a hard time getting appropriately into the grove today. Went through several songs and groups of songs and albums and finally settled on [House of Memories by Panic! at the Disco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xbWX2AxymE), which works really well lyrics wise to the scene, in many ways, but the music is a little too... hmm... exuberant? I really needed something that fit the melancholy of fears and not saying exactly what you meant and all that, but nothing felt right. So yeah. *fingers crossed*

The hardest part of being someone’s best friend was that everyone expected you to know what was wrong with said best friend when they were out sick. Ryan didn’t want to talk about Shane, about anything related to Shane, because he was still emotionally uncomfortable over the entire footage situation. Uncomfortable, and angry. It was a seething rage that simmered under the surface and when he snapped at Kelsey in the break room, he decided to take his laptop down to the Unsolved set and work there.

Shane’s laptop was sitting there, like a beacon of bad choices and Ryan stuffed it under the table with prejudice. TJ found him a few moments later there. He came in, looked at Ryan, looked at the laptop and then looked at Ryan again.

“Hey,” he said and Ryan looked up at him with a frown.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” Ryan asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Just trying to figure out what’s up with you.” TJ came over and sat down in a chair on the other side of the table. There was nothing in the way he was speaking or acting that told Ryan what he was thinking but it irritated him anyway.

“What do you mean?” Ryan snapped out. TJ waved a hand at Ryan and he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed about how he’d just spoken. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“I don’t care, because I know you’re not mad at me, but something is wrong. I think it has to do with Shane, and that’s because Shane’s not here and you don’t want to talk about him. Did you two break up or something?”

“We aren’t!” Ryan began and TJ raised his eyebrows at him, looking just as skeptical as Shane did over ghosts. “We *aren’t* together! There was… we had a thing, but we never talked about it again and it’s been a while so… you know, that’s not what this is about.” He was still a little annoyed about that to be honest, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that when he had something much worse to dwell on. Maybe he was dwelling on that a little. Just a touch, but not much, not as much as he was dwelling on the deleting of footage and the nagging fear that Shane had done it before.

“Okay. What is *this* thing about?” TJ waved a hand at Ryan again and Ryan hated that motion now that TJ had done it a couple times to him.

“It’s nothing,” Ryan mumbled and he looked down at his laptop. One foot moved and kicked Shane’s laptop, making him grit his teeth in frustration. If he just destroyed Shane’s laptop, would the company bill him for it?

“Yeah, of course it is, which is why you’re biting people’s heads off when they mention Shane and you’ve hidden yourself away from everyone. It’s nothing, I should have known.” TJ nodded his head at Ryan like that sentence made sense. Ryan hated how it made him sound like he was being a child hiding in his room because he wasn’t getting his way.

Ryan pursed his lips together and didn’t say anything to that. Anything he said wouldn’t help that image of tantrum toddler and he didn’t really want to encourage the picture. TJ just leaned back and stared at him. He tried to go back to work but it was incredibly uncomfortable trying to work when someone was actively staring at you. With an exasperated sigh, Ryan flung his hands up in the air and looked back at TJ.

“Look, he did something really bad, okay, something…” The dam broke then, the fear and frustration and anger all swooping out of him in a mess of words he had no control over. “He didn’t *trust* me with something and went to do a thing that if he’d just *told* me about I would probably have been okay with what he was doing but he didn’t *tell* me about it before going to do it, and it would have been a huge deal to me, which he should have fucking known, and now I have to figure out if I can ever forgive him, plus I have to decide what to do about the thing that he was trying to do and I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what to do!” He ran his hands through his hair and tugged at the strands a few times in annoyance. There was a touch of relief to finally say all of that, but when he came down from the high of word soup he realized that what he’d said probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Also he was out of breath.

“Uh huh,” TJ said with a nod. “And?”

“What and? That’s it Teej, that’s the everything.” Ryan shook his head and looked down at his hands. That was everything, right? Just said in a convoluted mess that maybe touched on the important things, but might not have actually.

“Do you agree with Shane or not?” TJ asked and Ryan closed his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. This fight must have happened yesterday, so you’ve had all night to think about it. That’s enough time for you. What do you want?”

Groaning, Ryan put his head in his hands. “I don’t want him to be right.”

“Because he was going behind your back. I get that, that sucks. But Ryan? If you already know the answer to what you want, whether or not you believe him or agree with him or whatever, then you should just accept that. You can go to him and argue about why he did it the way he did, but the decision has already been made about what you think. Tell him. Shane isn’t an idiot, no matter what you two play up for the camera. If you’re so angry he called out sick, then he’s no doubt thinking about this and only this and wondering if he’s just lost his best friend. He’ll be receptive to talking to you about it.” TJ got up out of the chair then and stretched out. “Okay, advice given. I’ve got to go wade through batteries now. See you later.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Ryan asked and TJ gave him a wink before leaving and closing the door quietly behind himself. With a sigh, Ryan looked at the computer in front of him and his shoulders slumped. TJ was right, he already knew what he thought, and it was going to be hard because he was going to have to deal with the footage, and with Shane.

Pulling out his phone he typed up a text to Shane. ‘Come over to my place after 6. We have to talk.’

‘Ok,’ Shane sent back and Ryan nodded. Shane wasn’t pushing, which was good because if he had, Ryan would just get angry again.

*

The traffic home sucked, so of course he got to his apartment late, and Shane was standing outside the door. With a nod, Ryan unlocked the way and motioned for Shane to enter. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes as they came in, took off shoes, put their coats up, moved into the kitchen for drinks and Ryan pulled out a bag from Chipotle that had been in his backpack. They’d done this dance so many times that the motions were easy, normal. This was the friendship that was in question, and Ryan could feel how much he didn’t want to lose it in that moment.

“I got you food,” he said and Shane nodded at him. Ryan moved to the little table and sat down. Shane followed, sitting across from him and Ryan didn’t even touch the food. He wasn’t really hungry at the moment.

“Do you think I saw a unicorn?” Ryan asked finally, looking up at Shane with as closed off a face as he could make. Shane could read him so well though, he had to wonder if he was projecting all his fears and hurts in Technicolor.

“The evidence seems to point to yes,” Shane said with a put upon sigh. There was a quaver to his voice that Ryan didn’t understand, but he didn’t have to. “You… you saw a unicorn and had an experience.”

“Okay.” Ryan nodded his head and took a large swallow from his water. That was stepping stone number one, and it had gone well. Shane wasn’t teasing him, wasn’t telling him he was nuts, he was accepting and Ryan could deal with that. “Okay. Good. We’re on the same page then.”

Shane looked at him with hope finally in his eyes and Ryan reached into his pocket. He pulled out a flash drive and slid it to the center of the table. Fingers remained on it for a moment, the need to let go warring with the need to not give this up. Eventually though he managed to move away, leaning back and leaving his posture open.

“What’s this?” Shane whispered, voice trembling slightly and Ryan couldn’t understand why this meant so much to Shane, but evidently it did.

“That’s all the footage of the unicorn experience. I kept a copy of it for myself, it’s going to go in a lock box and it’s going to be labeled senior project. If anyone finds it they’ll just think it was one of my school projects and I can say I was working on special effects if they ask. I won’t give that up. It’s… it *happened* and it’s real and I need to keep a piece of it to remind myself that I wasn’t crazy.” His voice was hard now, unyielding. There were things he’d give up, but this was not one of them. When he felt lost, scared, or certain that he was never going to find what he was looking for he’d pull out the drive and stare at truth. He needed that.

“Okay,” Shane said with a nod. “So… then what? What’s this?”

“Your choice,” Ryan said. This had been the hardest thing to come to terms with, but TJ had been right. He’d known what he wanted, what he thought when he’d gone into work this morning. Knowing what you wanted and accepting it wasn’t always the same thing. “I understand why you did what you did. I get it and I’m upset that you felt the need to go behind my back. I also get that you must have thought I would put it in the episode out of spite or something if you’d come to me with your thoughts. Knowing you don’t trust me hurts, really, really badly Shane. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and I just can’t even with this.”

“Ry-“ Shane choked out and God his eyes were filling with tears again. It was so unusual for Shane to cry, and it was beginning to hurt Ryan’s heart.

He had to keep going though, get it all out before the hurt and anger melted away. “So then this is it. You can… you can decide if we destroy this, or if we use it. I’m going to respect your decision here, because I respect you and I trust you.” Ryan looked at the flash drive, could feel the other drive in his pocket, and he waited, wondering what Shane would do.

Nothing happened for so long that sweat began to slide down the side of Ryan’s neck. It itched but he refused to move. He had to leave this up to Shane.

Finally, long fingers slid across the table and touched the drive. Ryan’s breath caught and he watched as Shane pushed it closer to Ryan. “You can… don’t put it all in, but if you can make it kind of ambiguous, maybe show horse but not the horn? I don’t know, just… so I can still be skeptical and you don’t have wasted footage and stuff.” Ryan held Shane’s gaze, watched him as Shane licked his lips. “I’m sorry Ryan. I shouldn’t have ever done that alone. I *won’t* make that mistake again. I *do* trust you, and I should have trusted you with this.”

“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “You *should* have.” He took the drive and tapped it on the table. “Which is what we’re going to fucking talk about next.”

“Okay.” Shane looked like he was waiting for that punch Ryan threatened him with the day before.

“You should have felt like you could tell me about this, about what you felt. I know I can get stubborn when it comes to evidence, and I know that I want nothing more than to prove this stuff is real. I also heard what you said, and I understand. I refuse to lie to our watchers Shane. I’m going to tell them I found a unicorn, I’m going to get so much shit because I’m going to have to edit things so it looks like maybe I just saw a beautiful white horse or something and I hate that *so* *much* you have no idea, but I get it. I don’t like it, I hate it, I hate it, but I thought about it for a long time.”

He looked up and held Shane’s gaze, taking in a deep breath and letting it out before speaking again. This needed to be said right, so Shane knew he understood, so Shane knew he’d thought things through calmly and rationally. “If I’m allowed to be angry that the white man took land from the Native Americans, if I’m allowed to be angry that the Mayan’s were murdered by the Spanish, then I guess I need to consider my actions on this as well. If this forest is the native land of the unicorn, then I should respect it’s ability to hide from people for so long, and accept that for whatever reason, it wanted to have an experience with me.”

He fiddled with his fingers for a moment. Every bit of him lit up when he thought about that creature coming close to him. Sometimes his forehead felt light and bright and he could feel the gentle touch of the horn on his skin. Why things happened as it did he had no idea, but he knew it happened, and the effects were ongoing for him. “It was an experience, and you’re right, I should… not let it become blown out of the water. I should consider the unicorn’s feelings, it’s… habitat. Besides, it might be the end to Unsolved, right?” he said dryly, not liking how much it hurt to say those words.

“They wouldn’t get rid of Unsolved, it’d just move to… Unfound maybe?” Shane said with a small twist of his lips. There was a relief to hearing him joke, like this could be figured out if they used the right words. That was what talking was supposed to do he supposed, but Ryan had never been so close to loosing someone so important to him before and for a time he hadn’t felt as though talking would fix things. Maybe he was wrong about that. The two of them were still here, after all. Shane reached for Ryan’s hand but stopped just before touching him. “Thank you Ryan. I can’t explain why I appreciate this so much, why it means so much to me, but thank you.”

“Yeah big guy,” Ryan breathed out, moving his hand so he was touching Shane. Talking worked. Hurray. Tension eased out of his shoulders and he felt a little shaky. “You’re welcome. Don’t ever fucking do this again. You come to me the minute you have any feelings about anything, understand? None of this dumb miscommunication. I don’t approve. We’ve come too far for this shit.”

“You’re right.” Shane squeezed Ryan’s fingers lightly. “That’s my fault, and I won’t… I won’t do it again. This… this dumb show means so much to me and I don’t want to lose it, or you.” His voice was soft, but clear and Ryan tried to parse meaning from them. Did Shane mean what Ryan wanted him to mean?

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Ryan agreed, watching Shane as his face got pink.

“Maybe… maybe we should have talked about that too?” Shane said softly. 

“Maybe,” Ryan nodded, but he was exhausted and didn’t want to touch on that right at the moment. They’d just jumped one huge hurtle, he wasn’t ready to rush towards the next. “I’m a little talked out right now though. Could we… just eat? Maybe watch a movie?”

“Yeah,” Shane said with a nod. “Yeah, let’s crack open this bag, see what’s inside.” He grinned and even though Ryan could see it didn’t reach Shane’s eyes he still felt the gentle squeeze of Shane’s fingers on his own before he reached for the food bag.

They were going to be okay, Ryan was sure. Both of them were obviously willing to work for it. He grinned back and let out a deep breath. One crisis at a time. Hopefully Shane wouldn’t bring the other thing up again until they were well over this thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, besides me, who else has a communication kink? ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, um, when I went to edit I ended up in a deep writing vogue state and several hours passed? Which is why this is going up so late. Also, I added about 1.5k words through the whole thing and I'm really hoping it all sounds okay because I haven't gotten the chance to read it over again and make sure. You should also be aware of the updated tags, as this chapter finally earns that E rating. ;)
> 
> This chapter can be broken down into two parts, and the first part was written to a version of this song: [Just Communication](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBqDyAvv-_M). There was no video of the version I was listening to, because I was listening from the OST of Gundam Wing. It's a lovely song, and I never knew the lyrics of it until today because back when I was first watching GW/listening to the music, there was no helpful thing like [animelyrics.com](https://www.animelyrics.com/anime/gundamw/gwjustcm.htm) to grab said words from. Now I have and it's really amazing and I love it even more. (I'm old. I used to have to watch my anime from VHS tapes rented from comic book shops. What an age we live in now where you can watch on your computer or TV from the internet. My heart soars with the excitement.)
> 
> The second part was written to this song: [Enae Volare Mezzo by eRa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8tvTyndLak). I love eRa, they have amazing albums, fantastic music, and they're great to write to. I have written a ridiculous amount of smut to this particular song. I have to give major props to an anime music video for introducing me to eRa, and this song in particular, because without it I would never have fallen in love with them. The anime is Yami no Matsuei, and the video is [Kyoto Doll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EibUi79WmWg&t=25s). It's a really good show, really good manga, and super creepy which I love. Also, the white haired guy is evil. All the evil. So much evil. I have an entire world I write in that was loosely based on this show and the obsessive nature of some of the characters. (Why is Muraki so fucking hot? He's so evil. I love him so much.)
> 
> Without further ado, may I present, the next chapter! *flourishing wave*

Shane was a little nervous asking Ryan if he’d like to come over after work when they’d just had a major fight a couple days ago, but they were about to be going off on location again and he didn’t want to do that with extra tensions. He liked to think of himself as more evolved than that. A few hundred years more evolved. So with a little trepidation, he nudged Ryan’s foot before lunch and looked over at him.

“Hey, so I know we were going to go out for lunch but I was wondering if you’d like to come over tonight, to my place, for dinner,” he said softly, forcing himself to keep hold of Ryan’s gaze. It was a little ridiculous how hard his heart was pounding.

“Oh, yeah, sure. We don’t have to skip lunch though.” Ryan looked a little confused. “I mean, unless you’d rather not?”

“No, no,” Shane said with a quick shake of his head. He didn’t want Ryan to feel like he was unwanted. Ryan was wanted. Very. “I just thought… you know, maybe you wouldn’t want to spend, like, all day with me.” He ended in a mumble and could feel his cheeks heat up. Jesus he wasn’t a child anymore, this shouldn’t be so hard.

“Nope,” Ryan said with a shake of his head. He looked around the room and stood up. “In fact, let’s go early. No one will even care, it’s Friday.” He lightly punched Shane’s arm. “Come on big guy, let’s fill up your never-ending stomach.”

Shane felt some of his fear slip away at the lighthearted way Ryan was behaving, giving him that boost of confidence he pretended he always had. Giving Ryan a smirk, he said, “If *I* have a never-ending stomach, and you eat more than I do, then what’s your excuse?”

“I don’t eat more than you!” Ryan said indignantly and Shane chuckled. Maybe they’d be fine after all.

*

When Ryan knocked on Shane’s door that evening, Shane was already weirdly frantic. Sleeping with Ryan that first time had just been… a thing. They had been drinking, Shane more than Ryan, and Shane had been in a bad mood and it had happened. But it wasn’t like his attraction to Ryan had been a surprise. He’d known for a while that he was interested in more, he just hadn’t thought Ryan was interested as well. Now that he was going to actually have “the conversation” he was nervous. Which was obviously ridiculous.

He opened the door and gave Ryan a smile. “Hey,” he said as he stood out of the way and Ryan slipped in with a smile of his own. If Ryan noticed anything weird about the way Shane was hovering around the door he didn’t say anything.

“Hey.” Ryan took off his shoes and moved into the kitchen to grab a beer from Shane’s fridge. In so many ways they knew each other so well. For the last several years they’d been moving around each other, into and out of the other’s space, making a place for one another without much thought. “So I don’t see food, is it on it’s way or are you going to surprise me by showing me you’re an awesome cook?”

“No,” Shane snorted. “I am not, in fact, going to surprise you with cooking. The food is on it’s way.” He closed the door and followed Ryan into the living room, sitting down next to him just like he had the last time Ryan was in his apartment. He didn’t have a drink himself because he wasn’t sure what he’d do with it. Even though his throat was dry he didn’t think he could swallow a thing right now.

“Cool.” Ryan opened his beer, drank and then turned to look at Shane. “So-“ he began, but Shane had just opened his mouth and both of them spoke at the same time. Somehow that made Shane relax a little.

After a pause and a chuckle from both of them, Ryan motioned to Shane. Taking in a breath, Shane licked his lips and nodded once. “We didn’t talk about the other night,” he said. One would think he was incapable of expressing himself given how badly he was doing it. “The one that happened. The… here.”

“The… here?” Ryan asked with a grin. Oh no, that better not be mocking. Shane couldn’t take that, he’d lose his head over mocking. Ryan hadn’t started this conversation on his own, Shane had been the one to bring it up. Twice now. “You mean you and me and your bedroom? You’re right. We didn’t talk about it.” His lips went from a smile to a frown and he hunched over his beer a little. For some reason that took away the annoyance Shane was feeling over Ryan’s teasing. “And then, I… didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure what to say.”

“I didn’t know either.” Shane sighed in relief. It wasn’t just him, it wasn’t just Ryan. Both of them had been dancing around this thing and that was… a starting point at any rate. “I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know I was attracted to you. I’ve known that for a while now, but I didn’t know you were, you know, not against the idea.” And there went all his eloquence. Gone in a flash of nerves.

“If I recall correctly, I was really into the idea,” Ryan said, raising his eyebrows at Shane.

“You were,” Shane agreed. Then he smiled, remembering Ryan and how very into it he was. The phrase, ‘God damnit Shane don’t stop,’ still came up during Shane’s personal time and he would be eternally grateful for it. “*Very* into it.”

“Yeah. So.” Ryan fidgeted with his can. A soft flush was creeping across his cheeks and that just made Shane want to lean forward and kiss the skin. “I guess, really, what we need to talk about, is whether or not we can do that again. If, you know, either of us want that.”

“I do,” Shane said instantly, knowing Ryan needed to hear him say the words. If he was lucky, the quickness of the answer would show how very into it he was. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, unable to sit completely still. “I am into that. I am into dating, I’m into this… being more. If you want to as well then I’d like to date you.”

“Yeaaaah.” Ryan spread the word out with a goofy grin, looking at Shane through his thick eyelashes. “You like me that way.”

Shane rolled his eyes at the look on Ryan’s face. It was ridiculous how much he did like Ryan that way. “That’s what I just said, yes. Do you?”

“Oh yeah,” Ryan said with a nod. “I would absolutely like to date you too.”

“Okay.” Shane ran his hands over his pants to dry them off. Somehow they had gotten really sweaty, probably the nerves. Taking in a deep breath, he let it out slowly and glanced around the room, somehow unable to look at Ryan at the moment. “Great.”

“So did that count as first date, or does this?” Ryan asked, casually taking a sip from his beer again and Shane gave Ryan a nudge with his knee.

“Last time counted as sex. Sex is not a date. Tonight, if you’re good with it, counts as a date. I’m not going out though, food is on it’s way and I’d like to stay in.” They spent so much time with each other that he wasn’t sure how to make it seem more like a date than like they were hanging out, but he’d try.

“I’d like to stay in as well.” The way Ryan said that made Shane snap his eyes back to Ryan’s face and he licked his lips, deliberately running his gaze down from Shane’s face to his chest, stomach, down his legs and back up again. Shane felt heat spread out through his entire body and an alarming amount of blood rushed south. “I’d like to stay as long as you’d like to have me.” How had they gone from “do you like me, check yes or no” to “wanna hop back in the bed and take off all our clothes” so fast? 

“That’s a dangerous thing to say to me,” Shane whispered. There was weight to what Ryan had said, weight that Ryan didn’t understand, couldn’t possibly because he was human and Shane was not. Now he wished he’d brought a drink with him because his mouth was completely dry. If he was honest with himself he didn’t want Ryan to ever leave. It wasn’t fully his choice though, and it was certainly too early to be thinking it seriously. The problem was, his kind were the type that, when they fell, it was hard and almost always final. They felt more whole when they were with their partner, more complete. He already would do just about anything for Ryan and they hadn’t said the important words to each other. The further this went, the more likely it was that Shane would want to move in with Ryan and never leave.

“Yeah?” Ryan put down his beer and leaned into Shane’s space. “So, I should have brought my overnight bag up after all?” His breath ghosted over Shane’s skin and that was a last straw for Shane.

Rushing forward, Shane pressed his lips against Ryan’s and suddenly they were kissing, lips and tongues moving wildly against each other. It was sloppy, neither one of them wanting the other to be in control, both pushing their tongues into the other’s mouth as fast as they could. Honestly, Shane loved it, even through the clack of teeth bumping into teeth, because for him there was nothing better in the beginning than the chase and the fight.

Ryan grabbed the edge of Shane’s shirt and slipping his hands under it, sending a shiver through Shane. Pulling away with a glare, Shane said, “That’s unfair.” He reached for the back of Ryan’s shirt and quickly pulled it up and off so it was pooling around Ryan’s hands. Ryan laughed and moved off of Shane so he could toss the shirt on the ground.

“My hands under your shirt is unfair, so you retaliate by taking mine off? You’re the one in buttons,” he said with a motion to the shirt still on Shane.

“So?” Shane asked as he went to work on said buttons and got them undone in record time. It was possible one of the buttons was torn out of the shirt, but he didn’t care. Ryan was *here* and Ryan was just as into this as Shane was, and Shane wanted to dive right back in and lick every part of Ryan’s body.

“Takes longer,” Ryan said, grabbing at it and tugging it off as soon as he could. Then he was reaching for the undershirt and had that off an instant later. He moved into Shane’s space, hands running up his sides, mouth latching onto his neck to suck at it.

Gasping, Shane wrapped his arms around Ryan, fingers trailing up and down the obscenely well toned back. It was ridiculous how hot it made Shane to touch Ryan’s flesh, body strong in ways Shane’s just wasn’t. Shane could work out for eons and he’d never achieve the same kind of muscle mass that Ryan did.

As he was reveling in the heat and weight of Ryan, he was pushed down on the couch. Spreading his legs for Ryan sent a shiver through him and Ryan moving into the space made his dick throb hard in his pants. Everything was moving too fast, and too slow and his head was getting dizzy with possibilities and desires. This wasn’t how he had expected the night to go, but he sure as fuck wasn’t complaining.

“Fuck Shane,” Ryan groaned as he lifted his head from Shane’s shoulder. The skin there was hot and wet, a low throb of pain racing through Shane’s entire body. He hoped the mark wouldn’t fade too quickly, he liked the feeling of it, right there by his head, no doubt visible if he wore the right shirt. “I just… want to touch all of you.”

“You’ll get no complaint from me,” Shane breathed out. He moved so he could kiss Ryan, tongue sliding inside again, tasting the beer and backing away just to make his point. “None.”

“This couch isn’t gonna work though,” Ryan whined even though he rolled his hips against Shane, their dicks pressing against one another making both of them groan.

“I certainly didn’t buy it for fucking on, that’s for sure.” Shane said it with a roll of his eyes and that got a soft wheeze from Ryan.

Ryan nodded and kissed him again. “We should go to the bed, right?”

“Only if you want to continue this. We could call it quits, sit up, adjust ourselves, watch some Netflix.” Shane raised his eyebrows at Ryan, both annoyed and relieved that Ryan was talking to him. It gave them both the chance to breathe, decide, make this a choice.

They stared at each other for a moment, the air waiting for one of them to say yes or no. Ryan gave Shane a small smile and nodded. “I want to continue this. In the bed. With no clothes on.” He kissed Shane again and Shane couldn’t help smiling against Ryan’s lips.

Which of course was when there was a knock on the door. Ryan blinked and Shane groaned, falling back on the couch. “The food,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh.” Ryan began to laugh then, and it was catching, so Shane was too a beat later. Standing up, Ryan helped Shane get off the couch, then leaned down to grab Shane’s undershirt. “I’ll meet you in the bedroom,” Ryan said with a wink. “Don’t take too long.”

“Fuck you,” Shane said with a groan. Teasing was unfair.

“I’m angling for that, yeah,” Ryan said with a nod and Shane nearly tripped over his own feet as he tugged the shirt on and walked to the door. When he turned with a flushed face to look at Ryan, he was already in the hallway.

*

By the time Shane got to his bedroom, the food in the oven just in case they wanted to eat afterwards, Ryan was already on the bed. He was completely naked and on his stomach, body twisted so two fingers could slide inside himself, positioned so his ass was the first thing Shane would see when he got to the door. Sweat was dripping down his cheek and his lip was caught in his teeth, his eyes closed in concentration. Shane ran into the doorframe.

“Jesus Christ Ryan,” Shane breathed, eyes roaming over the glorious sight in front of him. The air was heavy with expectations and Shane responded to it, his entire body on fire with desire. Ryan gave him a grin, opening his eyes to look at Shane, a soft groan slipping from his lips as his fingers moved in deeper. Shane couldn’t help the answering groan he gave as his eyes focused on those moving digits.

“What?” Ryan asked. He was trying to sound innocent but Shane didn’t buy it for a second. “Do you like what you see?”

“How could I not?” He tugged the undershirt off and his hands worked on his pants as he walked over to Ryan. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Yeah? I’m glad you think so.” Ryan followed Shane with his eyes, his fingers still moving, skin wet with lube, small sounds sliding out of him as they did.

“This is such a different side of you than I was expecting. When did you get so bold?” Shane stepped out of his pants and underwear so he could move onto the bed. Now that he was naked himself all he wanted to do was take over for Ryan. He reached out a hand and touched Ryan’s fingers, his own slipping along the lube and then over the edge of Ryan’s hole.

“That’s not a bad thing right?” Ryan gasped out.

“No. I love it.” If Shane was honest with himself he admitted that he’d fallen in love with Ryan a few years ago, but he would never tell Ryan that. Each little thing about the other man he learned just made him happier, and each interaction that surprised him made his heart ache in fondness. This was the man Shane wanted, and he kept Shane on his toes.

“That’s good. Fuck, Shane.” Ryan’s fingers paused as Shane leaned forward and kissed Ryan’s hand.

“Can I?” Shane asked and with a groan, Ryan let his fingers slide out. Then he rearranged Shane’s pillows, settling more comfortably before passing the bottle of lube to Shane.

“Go nuts, but I want to come on your dick, so don’t make me miss that.”

Shane grabbed the bottle and pressed his forehead against Ryan’s ass for a moment, just to breathe and settle himself. He was painfully hard now, his whole body strumming in time to his heart and the blood rushing through him. “This is just the fucking beginning Ryan,” he said. “Just the beginning. I’m going to show you so many things.” Turning his head to the side, he slicked his fingers and ran one around the hole before pressing in. Ryan took him perfectly, one finger becoming two in a heartbeat. Shane’s fingers were long, and not as thick as Ryan’s, so it didn’t take long before a third was sliding in as well. Fucking Ryan and his perfect fucking body.

“The beginning of what?” Ryan gasped out, pressing back on Shane’s fingers to get them as deep as he possibly could.

“Us,” Shane said as he leaned forward and licked Ryan’s ass. Between the sounds coming from Ryan’s ass and sight of him clenching around Shane’s fingers, Shane was dizzy with need. If he didn’t do something about it soon he’d fucking come right here like this, and he couldn’t decide if that would be embarrassing or really hot.

“Yeah.” Ryan nodded and pressed back again. “Fuck, I know I told you to go nuts, but Shane, I really, really want you now.”

“I’ve barely gotten to play.” He whined the words out but he didn’t really mean them. He wanted Ryan just as badly. A shudder when through Ryan’s body when Shane lightly bit the meat of Ryan’s ass, so Shane did it again just to get another shudder. “I’m not ready to be done yet.” In truth he needed to calm down so bad, so he was trying to focus on what he was doing and now what his body needed.

“I believe that, I do, I do, but Shane…” Ryan whined again and Shane couldn’t help the chuckle. “I’ve wanted this so long and I’m ready. I’m really ready and I need you so badly.”

“Okay, okay,” Shane said with a small chuckle. “But later? I’m going to take my time pulling you apart.” Later when they didn’t start things in a different room and he was the one leading the show instead of the one coming in partway through.

“Promise?” Ryan gasped out.

“Yes.” Shane slid his fingers from Ryan’s ass and tapped him with them. “Onto your back. I want to watch you.”

Ryan turned over instantly and Shane licked his lips as he watched Ryan move. It was like a coiled wire moving perfectly from one position to the other with no hesitance. Ryan wasn’t ashamed of his body, so he could move it with his will and that was incredibly beautiful.

Shane had been with a number of people over the years, some more shy or uncomfortable than others, himself included on occasion. It was a different dynamic, coaxing someone to lose themselves to what they were doing until they didn’t even notice what they looked like. This was a different kind of thing, Ryan was all in, ready and wanting and not at all ashamed of himself or worried that Shane wouldn’t like what he was looking at. Shane liked that a lot more than he would have ever expected.

“Stop admiring the landscape,” Ryan said as he tossed a condom at Shane, pulling Shane from his thoughts and focusing him on what they were doing. “Get that on and get inside me already.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Shane said with a chuckle. He took the condom though and put it on. What else would he do, after all, when he was asked so nicely? “Woo me handsome man.”

“Do I really seem like the wooing type?” Ryan gasped out as Shane nudged himself against Ryan. “Because if I do then I have something I regret to tell you. Oh fuck!”

Shane would vocalize his agreement but he was sliding inside Ryan and it felt so amazing he couldn’t speak. Slowly, letting Ryan get used to the length of him, he moved in deeper. Ryan wrapped his legs around Shane and pulled him closer, pushing up to take the last bit with a swift move and both of them groaned.

“You’re a demon,” Shane said, blinking sweat out of his eyes. Every point of him that was touching Ryan was thrumming with magic, wave after wave crashing against him in time to his heartbeat. The first time hadn’t been like this, overwhelming and good, creating a circle of power that went from him to Ryan and from Ryan to him. He’d never really done sex magic before, he’d never wanted to, but if it was like this every time, he could see why people would.

“Sure,” Ryan agreed. “That’s why I’m so scared of them.” He licked his lips and reached up to touch Shane’s arms. “I’m good, I’m good, you can move.”

“I don’t know that I can,” Shane said with a soft breath. He had this fear that if he moved, it would all be over, already, and he’d hardly been inside Ryan. This experience needed to last a little longer, it couldn’t be over so quickly, he didn’t want it to.

“Yeah?” Ryan gave Shane a lopsided grin. “I feel that good?”

“Yes,” Shane said. “You do.” He took in a breath though and then carefully pulled himself out just enough so he could rock back inside. A pulse of magic slipped from him and into Ryan, Ryan gasping with it even if he didn’t know why. When he did it again, a pulse slid from Ryan to him, making his dick twitch. Every touch was amazing, Ryan the perfect tightness, warm and slick, the feedback loop of magic adding to it until Shane couldn’t see anything but Ryan.

He leaned down and kissed Ryan, fingers moving to Ryan’s hips, gripping tight as he found his rhythm. It was a slow start, Shane not used to the surge of magic between them, but when he got used to it, when Ryan was shaking under him, he moved faster, harder. Every inch of him was slick with sweat, and Ryan was no better. Gasps and the sound of skin hitting skin was all Shane could hear, his name falling off Ryan’s lips here and there as they both rushed towards an ending they needed like they needed to breathe.

“Shane,” Ryan gasped. “Shane… Shane please.” The air was heavy, magic rising around them like heat shimmers, and Ryan reached between them to wrap his fingers around his dick.

“Yeah Ry, fucking come, just like you wanted to.” Shane couldn’t hold back any longer, he had to finish, had to know what happened when they both went over the edge. He kissed the nearest patch of skin he could reach and Ryan whimpered at the shock that went through them both, magic like electricity.

“I’m gonna… I…” and then he was coming, clenching around Shane which pushed Shane over the edge with him. For one, bright moment, everything was still. Magic was dancing around the room, Shane could see Ryan’s energy and his own mixing together into one spiral of color. Time slowed to nothing, Shane and Ryan were in perfect harmony, bodies and spirits aligned and one being instead of two.

Then they both fell, life returning to it’s normally scheduled tick tick of time, magic falling to the ground and down several stories until it sank into the earth. It was hot, sticky and absolutely perfect.

Shane practically collapsed on top of Ryan, which made Ryan chuckle. Kissing Ryan a couple times, Shane tried to control his breathing.

“You’re amazing,” Ryan said and Shane nodded.

“Yeah, you are, now shut up, I need a minute.”

Ryan laughed at that and wrapped one hand around Shane. Closing his eyes, Shane began to relax, letting Ryan take his weight. Several minutes passed in silence then and Shane was finally beginning to feel like he could move when Ryan spoke again.

“This was a good first date. 10 out of 10, would date again.”

“We didn’t even eat,” Shane reminded Ryan.

“So, I guess, this is a good second fuck?”

Shane snorted and shook his head. Trust Ryan to make all the serious emotions and magic fuckery settle into humor. Shane had never had such a thing happen to him before, and he didn’t know what to think of it. He sure didn’t want to think about it now though. “Sure.”

“10 out of 10, would fuck again.”

“Yeah, there’s that romance I was asking for,” Shane said and Ryan shrugged.

“If you wanted romance, you shouldn’t have come a’courtin’ me.” Ryan kissed Shane’s head.

“Fair point.” Shane moved so he could look at Ryan. “Shower, then food?”

“Yeah, I think I could eat.” Ryan grinned. “You go first, I don’t think my legs are ready to walk just yet.”

“Okay.” Shane carefully slid out and took off the condom, tossing it in his trash as he left the room. How his legs were even moving he wasn’t sure, but it might have been the renewal of energy that was thrumming under the surface of his skin. It was as though sex had reinvigorated him, which wasn’t something he’d come to expect out of the act. He glanced at Ryan, spread out on his bed and looking beautiful, and he thought he could stand to live a lifetime like this, weird magic and all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another chapter lovelies! I've been so amazed by the love this story has gotten, and I'm so happy to keep writing on it. Thank you everyone for your support, comments, kudos, and hits! <3
> 
> This week was edited to an eclectic mix of music. First we have [Eden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUQwhUEjhpI), the opening song to Yami no Matsuei. Following that I ended up writing most of the second half to music from one of the Yu Yu Hakusho movies. These are characters songs for Kurama and Hiei, my two favorite characters. Kurama's song is [Nightmare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ05AtSzy14), and Hiei's song is [Shisenjou no ARIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcCC7GmAFd0). All of it is good music and highly recommended.
> 
> With that, enjoy! <3

“So, as you all know I will only do one demon episode each season, and this, this is my sacrifice,” Ryan said with a motion towards the abandoned hospital they were standing outside of. “It’s horrible, I hate it already.”

“Yeah, it’s not great,” Shane agreed with a nod. One side of the building was crumbling and had a huge lump out of it and the other just looked…. Dilapidated. Very few of the windows seemed to have glass in them and there was a huge gate around the outside with a padlock to keep people out. They’d gotten permission to enter, and had been given a tour during the daylight but it just looked so much worse at night. “I mean, I’m a little worried the structure is going to just fall over while we’re inside it.”

“It shouldn’t, but there are parts that are condemned, so we can’t actually go inside them.” Ryan took in a breath and nodded at Shane. “After you.”

“Okay.” He didn’t mind going first, Ryan being the scaredy cat that he was. It was always so amusing that he was the one who pushed for these episodes but Shane was the one who was cool and calm during them. Maybe it was because Shane knew that there weren’t any demons around anymore. He took a few steps inside the gate and then whistled like he was trying to call a dog to him. “Demons, if you’re around, we’re coming for you,” he called out and Ryan gave a nervous chuckle and stepped a little closer to Shane.

“I hate you,” Ryan mumbled and Shane grinned.

*

“These corridors are said to see full bodied apparitions, especially of the guy who died by suicide in this room, four twenty three.” Ryan’s voice was shaking as he stepped closer to the door. It was pulled from the top hinge and hanging down at an angle.

“Well, someone really didn’t want that door closed,” Shane said with a laugh. It was a little unnerving to see the door like that. Almost as unnerving was the lingering trace of death magic that flit on the edges of Shane’s awareness. None of it was recent, in fact it all felt rather ancient, but it still lay like grease along the walls and at corners of the building. He couldn’t feel anything that was attached to it, but it still didn’t feel…. right. “Tell me about this guy, sounds like he had it rough.” Shane needed the distraction.

It had been a long time since he’d been so aware of light magic traces, maybe the run through that forest had reconnected him to it all. He was never completely disconnected, but magic had been a dull throb easily ignored for years now. The past few weeks it hadn’t been. Then there was what happened between him and Ryan very recently, he was still thrumming with power from that.

“Yeah, he did,” Ryan said with a nod. He took in a deep breath and glanced up at Shane. “He was said to be one of those repeat customers, kept getting hurt and ending up at the hospital. He was here again, tended to and getting well when he just decided he’d had enough. According to reports he walked down to the surgery rooms and grabbed a scalpel, putting it to his neck and slicing it so badly that he cut through his artery and throat. He bled out in moments and since then you can hear him walking around and just… cutting up the walls with messages. Sometimes he just walks up to you and tells you to leave.” Ryan flashed his light into the room, which was a mess. There was trash everywhere, graffiti across the walls and floor, a ruined hospital bed and a metal chair was on it’s side in the corner.

“This is just delightful,” Shane said with a cheery smile. He loved how creeped out Ryan got in these places, and he couldn’t help how pleased that made him. It was like going swimming in a pool at night and thinking there were sharks in the deep end just because you couldn’t see in the water. The fear was just absurd. “Look, there’s so much writing, if there were carved messages we’d never know.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said with a nod, voice wavering. “Lot’s of spray paint.” He stepped into the room finally, carefully pulling the door a little more open so he could walk in, and Shane was right behind him. “It’s not… um… pleasant feeling in here at all.”

“I don’t know, a little sweeping, a little rug and you’d have a sweet little bedroom, don’t you think?” Shane chuckled as he panned the light and when he did it went past the doorway and he saw a flash of red eyes.

Red eyes. That could explain the traces of death magic he’d been feeling. Shane’s entire body tensed as he stared right into those eyes. His body was dangling between fight or flight, uncertain which he was going to decide on. The funniest thing was that for the first time ever, Ryan was getting exactly what he wanted. Standing there in the hallway was a being that Shane hadn’t seen or felt for a very, very long time, and the fact that it was even daring to come near Shane was impressive. A demon, real and alive and right in front of him. If he had to choose which creature he interacted with after all these years, a demon wouldn’t be his first choice, but he supposed that wasn’t something he could control. Shane wasn’t certain if he should be rushing to get between TJ and the demon, or if he should just laugh and act like nothing was going on. 

Before he made a decision the man held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry,” he said, voice low and soft. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What the fuck?!” Ryan screamed out, turning and shining his light into the doorway. Even TJ jumped, panning his camera to get the man in the frame.

“You did,” Shane said. He gave a big grin to the demon and started clapping. Best to go with his role as silly investigator until he knew more. For the moment at least, the demon wasn’t attacking anyone, so he wasn’t interested in rampant mayhem. “Good job. Sorry, but could you, just like, go away? We’re kind of doing a show here.” He put a little wave of light energy towards TJ and Ryan, marking both of them as his so the demon wouldn’t get any ideas.

“Yeah, I know,” the man said with a wince, shaking his head. Shane frowned at him, not reading any ill intent, which was actually rare and odd all on it’s own. This was one very bold creature. “And you know, I would never bother you if I could. I really shouldn’t talk to you at all, I know that, I do, but… I’d really like a moment in private, please? It’s…” Then he said a word that Shane hadn’t heard since he was little and still running around glowing forests as a colt. It had many meanings, but the way this demon said it made the meaning clear. Important, dangerous, threatening to all. A shiver went through Shane as he recognized the urgency behind it.

Ryan rushed over to Shane and placed his hand on Shane’s shoulder. “What’s he talking about?” Ryan whispered and Shane shook his head. There was no way Ryan couldn’t tell that Shane was unnerved, but he had to try to salvage the situation, somehow.

“I have no idea Ryan,” he said with a small shrug, but he didn’t take his eyes off the demon. “I’ve never met him before.” If he left the room with the demon, then he could get him away from Ryan and TJ, and that would be better for Shane’s sanity.

“Are you Charles Greene?” Ryan asked. He turned to look at the demon and Shane wanted to step in front of him to block him from the demon. Ryan wouldn’t appreciate it if he did though, so he held his ground, let the question be dealt with.

“Huh?” the man asked with a wrinkle of his brow. He glanced around the room and shrugged. “Oh, you mean the guy who supposedly suicided? Nah, that’s not me. Look, I’d just like to speak to the uni-“ but he was cut off by Shane when he stepped forward.

“That’s enough,” Shane said. This was not the way he was going to tell Ryan who he was. Turning off his camera, he walked closer to the demon. “Yeah, we can talk in private. Whatever I can do to get you to go away.” Whatever he could do to protect his people.

“Shane are you sure?” Ryan asked and Shane could hear the frown even if he couldn’t see it. “We don’t know who this guy is, and we don’t know what he wants.”

“He won’t hurt me,” Shane said with absolute certainty. There was no way he could hurt Shane, not in any lasting sense. Shane’s blood was acid to a demon, the demon would melt before he’d inflict enough damage to kill a unicorn. He gave Ryan a pat on the shoulder, breaking his gaze with the demon even though it was almost physically painful to do it. “Besides, I think you need the time to calm down. You’re breathing’s really heavy, you almost thought a perfectly normal human was a ghost.” He laughed at Ryan who was glaring at him.

“It was startling, no one should be in here but us,” Ryan said quickly.

“Yeah, so let’s get him on his way.” Shane let his hand slip away from Ryan and he walked out into the hallway. “Walk with me,” he said to the demon in a low, harsh voice.

“Yes sir,” the demon said with a nod. They stepped a few feet down the hall, but Shane knew that Ryan would be trying to listen in. He needed to find some sense of privacy or Ryan would freak out completely from this conversation. Once he was halfway down the hall he stepped into a room, waiting until the demon was with him before he closed the door.

“Now,” Shane said. He turned and crossed his arms over his chest. “First things first, what are you even doing here?”

“Well, that does seem like the first thing to discuss, doesn’t it?” He shuffled his feet and sighed. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“For me?” Shane asked with a small laugh. “Why?”

“Because, I think I’m being stalked.” The demon looked around and took in a deep breath, stepping closer to Shane and lowering his voice. “Look, you’re a unicorn, and so that means you keep the balance, right?”

“If there was a way to do that, yes, of course.” Shane shook his head. He’d never really learned all he needed to in order to “keep the balance”, but he’d given up figuring it would be his problem since everyone seemed to be gone. “But there aren’t any other beings to keep in line. You’re the first I’ve met or seen with my own eyes for over a hundred years.” He motioned to the demon. “You can see why I’m surprised.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can. I’ve been hiding out for a while, trying to stay out of the light. Something weird has been going on, I think someone’s closing the doorways.” The demon looked around again, as though he was trying to find someone in a corner or a shadow. “I have a lot of reasons to think this too.”

“Doorways?” Shane asked, his brow furrowing in his confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, the doorways between realms,” the demon said with a motion of his hand. “The ones that connect everything together.”

“I *don’t* know what you’re talking about.” Shane looked around and his eyes landed on the door for a moment. What the hell was this demon talking about? “What realms?”

“Oh man, are you a colt?” the demon asked with a small groan and a slap of his hand to his face. “Did you not take your maturity rites?”

“Excuse you,” Shane said with a lift of his nose. “I’ve more than passed my maturity years.” Even if he hadn’t taken his rites because he couldn’t find his herd anymore, he was more than past the age.

“Fuck-“ the demon spit out vehemently but he didn’t get to say anything more because the door was blasted open and a woman stalked into the room.

“How lovely, two for the price of one,” she said with a smooth voice and then jumped at them with knives in her hands. Behind her the door slammed shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a note: I'm that silly child who was scared of the deep end of the pool at night because there were sharks there, obviously, and I made my sister turn the pool light on every time we went night swimming because of it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to another chapter from Ryan's POV. I'm going to go ahead and warn here that the next several chapters are going to be a bit... bloody. Starting with this one.
> 
> Edited to Prince and the New Power Generation, song titled [Thunder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm_2DwD6BrM). I actually had a cat I named Thunder after this song. He was a great cat, and between him and Shadow I ended up with my Cloud kitten! Storm rounded out my first generation of cats I had with my wife, and I find it vastly amusing to think of the names these days.

“I just wish I could hear what’s going on,” Ryan said to TJ, who had put the camera down and was shrugging at him. Every part of Ryan was antsy, and he just paced and paced. It was taking all his self control to keep from marching down to where Shane had disappeared and demanding he be part of the conversation.

“I mean, I do too but his mic is off, the camera’s are off, and he’s in there,” TJ said with a vague wave of his hand. “This is his choice Ryan, he’s a big boy, he can make those on his own.”

“It just feels weird, right?” Ryan asked. His bottom lip got caught in between his teeth and he began to chew on it. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, but we have to respect his wishes or we’d just be treating him like we don’t trust him.” TJ sighed. “Relax, it’s a guy, he probably watches the show or something.”

“Doubt that.” Ryan looked towards the door and then back to TJ. “It just feels wrong, the guy feels wrong. There’s something about him I really don’t like, he gives off bad vibes.”

“Ryan, it’s just a dude,” TJ said with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s not that!” Ryan began but then there was a loud bang down the hall. Ryan and TJ looked down the hall and even from where they were they could tell something was wrong with the door Shane and the mysterious man had gone through. “Shane!” Ryan cried out, running over to the door and grabbing a hold of the handle, trying to get it open.

“What the fuck?” TJ whispered. He was right behind Ryan and he put a hand on the door himself. “Ryan, you’re never going to get that door open, it’s… collapsed or something.”

Ryan pulled away enough to look at the door and TJ was right. It was bent wrong in the center, the edges of it wrapped around the doorframe like it had melted and reformed. “Jesus Christ, what could make this happen?” he breathed, one hand touching it, but it was cool.

“I don’t know, but maybe we should call the police? This is really weird.” TJ touched the other side of the door, frowning as he did so.

“It really is.” Ryan took off his recording equipment as quickly as he could without injuring anything and pressed it all into TJ’s hands. “Call the police, I’m going to see if there’s another way into the room.”

Before TJ could say anything, Ryan dashed into the next room. The only thing on his mind was Shane, which meant he wasn’t even thinking about how scary the entire hospital was supposed to be. Shane was all that mattered, Shane stuck in a room with some random guy and maybe no way of getting out.

The room was just as much of a mess as the room he’d been in with Shane down the hall, and even though he pressed his hands all along the wall he found no entrance to the other room. His flashlight swept the room and Ryan paused when it went over a broken window. He walked over, glancing through it to look out and to the left, hoping he might see something of the other room from here.

Just as he looked over the window next door was shattered out, a body flying through it. Glass and blood was lit from Ryan’s flashlight and the body fell head first towards the ground. “Shane!” Ryan screamed. There was the sound of scuffling, and then Shane’s head was being pushed out of the broken window. Which meant that the body must have been the other guy.

“Get the fuck off of me,” Shane snapped out to whoever had him by the collar and was shaking him. Ryan couldn’t hear what they said back to Shane though, the voice was too soft.

“Shane! Shane!” Ryan cried out and Shane turned his head to look over at Ryan. Their eyes caught, and Ryan could feel tears pricking his eyes. What the ever loving fuck was going on?

“I’ll be okay Ryan,” Shane said calmly, his face getting set and hard. “You just hang tight, okay?” He turned back to the person who was holding him and lifted his hands, pushing them away from himself.

“No! Shane!” Ryan said frantically as Shane disappeared back into the room. “No…” Ryan pulled himself back into the room and headed out again. He flew over to the door and began pounding on it. “Fucking come out of there!”

From the other side of the door he could hear the sounds of fighting, and what the fuck even? When did Shane learn how to fight? It was the only thing that made sense to Ryan’s brain though. What else could those noises mean but fighting, and then there was a scream and a gurgle. The door made a sharp whining sound and then it swung lopsidedly open. Ryan grabbed it and pulled it open fully and took three steps into the room before his mind picked up on what he was looking at.

A woman was up against the wall, hands wrapped around a golden and silver spiraled horn, which just happened to be impaled in her chest. Blood was dripping from her lips, which were curved up in a gruesome smile. “You don’t belong here,” she said before slumping completely. The horn slipped out of the body and blood sprayed everywhere. Ryan gasped as his eyes trailed from the horn down to the white head, the beautiful eyes, the silver mane, the glowing body and holy fuck that was the same unicorn he’d seen in the forest. He’d recognize those eyes anywhere. The unicorn turned his head and looked at Ryan. There was such intelligence in those eyes, and he made a noise that sounded like a snort.

“You’re real,” Ryan breathed out just before he fell down to his knees. His heart was pounding fiercely in his chest, his head felt light and he couldn’t really feel his fingers or toes. He thought maybe he was having a panic attack.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned into a combination of 2 scenes with much added dialogue, action, and explanation. I think that made things better.
> 
> Today we edited to 2 things, both from the Pacific Rim soundtrack, because that one is amazing. The first half was done to [Category 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y37fQ13NR_k), and the second half was done to [Physical Compatibility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FokAOx1s_so). I kinda went onto infinitelooper in order to loop the Category 5 song so I could skip the first part of the song as it was a little too big and brassy for the writing but the rest of it was really good. Anyway, enjoy! <3

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shane said as he sidestepped. The woman, whoever she was, laughed and turned, flinging one of her daggers out towards the demon.

“Sure you do sweetie,” she said, voice like rancid honey. “He’s a demon, and you’re something else, I’m sure. He doesn’t talk to just anyone.”

“This is her!” the demon gasped out frantically. He ran over towards the wall. “This is the person I thought was following me. They’re part of something bigger.”

“Sweetie,” she laughed. “You won’t live to tell anyone else.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Shane moved to the other side of the room. If the woman wanted to go after one of them, she had to choose.

It had been a very long time since Shane had fought, he didn’t like doing it, but he didn’t think she was going to give him a choice. The woman went for the demon, rushing at him, and then with a shimmer of magic, she flung him out of the window. Shane blinked at that for a moment too long because then she had him by the throat and was forcing him to the wall. His head went out the window and he could feel glass shards scratching him.

“Now sweetheart, I know what he is, what on earth are you?” she asked, voice low.

He would have answered her, but he heard Ryan’s voice, and he turned his head towards the voice. Ryan’s face was out of the window, eyes wide with fear, not the good kind either, not the spooked over silly things like wind and closing doors and squeaky wheels or hinges. This was the other kind of fear, the bad kind, the kind that meant he was scared for his life for reals, or for someone *else’s* life. Something inside Shane got very angry over that, and every protective instinct inside of himself took notice.

“I’ll be okay Ryan,” he said as he held Ryan’s gaze, just long enough so Ryan would believe him. “You just hang tight, okay?” Then he turned to the woman, eyes narrowing, and with both hands, he pushed her away from himself.

Being what he was, Shane had a strength that few could match, certainly no human had ever come close. Because of this, he usually pulled his punches, was careful when he engaged in anything physical. However this woman scared Ryan, and Shane wasn’t okay with that. Long ago he’d sworn to himself he’d protect that little guy, and getting rid of her was his priority if he wanted to do that.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” she taunted as she stepped back. “This world isn’t yours.”

“This is my *home*, I’ve lived here my whole life,” Shane snapped back as they circled each other. He flexed his hands into and out of fists, readying them for the fight to come. Every movement of hers was calculated, honed, magic sparking along the edges of her body. It was a dark red orange, like rust, and he could almost taste the tang in the air. In a moment they both rushed towards one another.

“That’s sad, really.” Her hands flashed in the air, magic flowing from her fingers to her blade, slicing through his clothes and nicking his arm. The wound wasn’t deep, and the magic wasn’t the right kind to do any real damage. He was a fucking unicorn for crying out loud. Only certain magic would damage him.

Shane moved out of the way, spun around her, grabbed hold of her shoulders and pushed. His own magic, rarely used and therefore filled to the brim, rushed through him and extended to every part of his body. The sound of ripping cloth barely registered, and for the second time in as many months he was standing in his pure form. He hadn’t even put thought into the action, it had just happened.

She shook her head and closed her eyes on the bright flash of white that went through the room. “It’s not possible,” she breathed, and he snorted at her. Taking advantage of her shock, he rushed forward, lowering his head and piercing her with his horn.

Flesh and bone and muscle couldn’t stand up to the alicorn, nothing could. She lifted her hands and wrapped them around it. Tiny shocks of orange magic licked across his horn, making him shiver. “You don’t belong here,” she gasped, opening her eyes. Shane stared at her while she slumped, dead, around him. He took a step back, the splurch noise her body made around his horn was a little sickening. She slid off of him and hit the floor with a thump, the stench of blood lifting to coat the air, making his stomach churn. He could see the hole where his horn had dug into the wall and he blinked at it a few times. Whoops.

There was a sound and Shane turned his head, seeing Ryan standing in the doorway. “You’re real,” Ryan breathed, and then his body slumped down to his knees. Shane snorted at him. Obviously he was real. “Oh my God, you’re real. A fucking unicorn is standing in front of me. I don’t think I can move.”

Well that was silly. He walked over to Ryan, who’s eyes went very wide, and gently leaned down to nuzzle Ryan’s shoulder. In his pure form communication with a human was a little tricky. The realization of the situation was hitting him a little late, and he couldn’t shift back, not yet, if he did he’d be naked.

“What?” Ryan gasped. He let out a frantic giggle. “What are you doing? Are you… what is… where?” He giggled again as Shane nuzzled his shoulder once more. Shane could hear Ryan’s heart pounding hard and fast in his chest and that was a little worrying. “Stand? Are you trying to tell me to stand?”

Facial expressions were much different when a person who was usually in a person shape was suddenly in a horse shape. At least he could still snort, which he did, and he could roll his eyes as well, which he also did. The effect wasn’t the same, of course, but he was hopeful the message would get across anyway.

Shane lowered his head so his nose was lightly rubbing against Ryan’s chest. Ryan’s heartbeat hadn’t slowed and he needed to find a way to make it do that. He took in an exaggerated breath, then let it out slowly. A hand gently lifted and touched Shane’s cheek. That was fine, Ryan was going to be fine if he just chilled out a little bit. Shane would allow the touching if Ryan would do that thing.

“You’re fucking beautiful,” Ryan whispered. His eyes were so wide. “If I hadn’t had the proof, the video and stuff, I would think I had imagined you. Even with it, I kind of did.” He lightly stroked his hand down Shane’s jaw and then moved his hand slowly back up. “Oh my God, I’m touching a unicorn. Something is going to just break off and disappear because this shouldn’t be allowed.”

Shane snorted again. That was silly.

“So I called the police,” TJ’s voice came from the hallway and Shane paused, blinking into Ryan’s chest. Fuck. “And they’re -holy shit!”

“I know, right?” Ryan gasped.

“That’s… that’s a fucking… that’s!”

Shane lifted his head with a sigh and looked up at TJ. Was TJ going to freak out as well? This was ridiculous. TJ should be more chill than this. He didn’t have to about TJ’s mental state for very long though. The sound of running feet came from the hall and then the demon came around the door and into the room.

“Hey,” he said and Ryan began screaming.

“No!” Ryan said as he stood up, nearly knocking Shane in the face as his hands went flailing. “You were dead! You had to be dead! You fell headfirst out the fucking window!”

“Well,” the demon said with a shrug. “Yeah. I know.” There was blood all across his face, his arms, his body, but he looked to be in decent shape. The perks of being a demon.

“You!” Ryan screamed out again, hands flailing. “What the fuck are you?” Then he moved behind Shane for about a second before he moved in front of him again. The war between “protect me unicorn” and “protect the unicorn” going on inside Ryan’s head must be amazing. Shane couldn’t help the whinnying laugh that slipped from him as he thought about it.

“A demon.” He nodded at Shane. “I’m glad you survived, she didn’t hurt you did she? Have you ever seen her before?”

Shane shook his head and glanced at Ryan, who was staring at the demon with his mouth open, hands twitching. Lightly nudging Ryan, he let out another huff and sigh, shaking his mane and pulling in his strength. There was nothing else to do, he couldn’t just walk away from this. He closed his eyes and felt his form shift, finally standing in his human shape again, cold now that he was naked and barefoot on the cold metal ground.

“Could I get a shirt or something?” he asked as he looked up at TJ, who had the camera going but was staring at Shane with wide eyes, camera focused on the ground. “I’m a little naked here.” TJ just blinked at him.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” Ryan said softly and Shane turned to look at him. His face was pale, his body was shaking, and his eyes kept going up and down Shane’s body like he was trying to understand the secret of the universe. Knowing Ryan he probably was.

“Yeah, um, maybe your flannel,” Shane asked with a vague gesture towards Ryan. Ryan’s eyes found his and they blinked a few times.

“Here,” the demon said and Shane didn’t even look over at him, just held out a hand and took the shirt he’d been offered.

“Is there blood on this?” Shane asked as he looked away from Ryan and down at the shirt in his hands. If he was lucky it would cover him to his waist, but no one here was as tall as Shane so he’d still need something to cover the rest of him.

“You… You…” Ryan gasped and Shane looked at him again. All the color had drained from Ryan’s face and Shane was at a bit of a loss on what to do here. He’d never told his secret to anyone, and here were two of his closest friends now in the know. He didn’t know how to deal with this anymore than Ryan knew how to.

“What about me?” Shane tilted his head a little as he watched Ryan and put the shirt on. It wasn’t long enough, ending just above his waist and leaving the rest of him completely bare. If he was really lucky, TJ wouldn’t move the camera up to get a shot of his ass.

“You… you….” Ryan seemed stuck on that singular word, and Shane frowned at him.

“Are you broken?” Shane asked softly. “Have I broken you? I didn’t mean to do that.” There were a lot of things he didn’t mean to do that had happened tonight.

“Unicorn!” Ryan squeaked. “You were a horse!”

“Rude,” Shane said. “Unicorn and horse are two very different species.”

“I don’t… I don’t..” Ryan stepped back and then tripped and before he could fall Shane was right there, wrapping his arms around Ryan to keep him from braining himself on the wall or stepping into blood.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Shane said gently. He lifted a hand and touched Ryan’s cheek. A strand of his own magic slipped over to Ryan, stroking Ryan’s magic like it was trying to soothe him. “I promise, you’re going to be okay.”

Hands shaking, Ryan reached up to touch Shane’s cheeks. “You’re a unicorn,” he breathed out finally and Shane flushed.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m a unicorn.”

“You bastard,” Ryan said with a glare. “I told you ghosts were real.” Shane blinked at him a couple of times, and then started to laugh.

“I don’t know about that. Unicorns are supernatural creatures, and ghosts are the disembodied forms of the deceased. They aren’t the same thing you know?” Shane gave Ryan a grin.

“We can discuss what is and isn’t real when Shane has pants and the police aren’t on their way,” TJ finally said and Shane turned to look at him.

“Right. You’re right. I’ll head down to the car and grab pants from the duffle. I think I’ve got a pair stashed,” Shane said and TJ nodded his head.

“I’ll go,” TJ said. “You don’t have shoes either, and I don’t want you walking around in bare feet.” He turned off the camera and carefully set it down. “I’ll be right back.”

“I don’t know that I should be here for that conversation,” the demon said and Shane nodded.

“Yeah, I agree. You should get out of here. Meet us back at our hotel, we need to talk about this woman, and whatever it was that she’s doing.” Shane glanced at the body on the ground and sighed. “I’ll have to incinerate her.”

“No,” Ryan said with a shake of his head. “No, if she’s gone then everything is made up. Can we… can we impale her on something? Like she was chasing you and fell?”

“Out the window?” the demon suggested and Shane frowned.

“Yeah, we could make that work. Fuck, I haven’t used magic in so long.” Shane looked at Ryan. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Nope,” Ryan said instantly. “I think I’m running on sheer terror. Let’s get this done so I can freak out in the hotel room.”

“Right.” Shane reached out and touched Ryan’s cheek. “I’m sorry for all this.”

“Shut up Shane, and get her out of the window.” Ryan gave him a narrowed eyed stare and then shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Yeah.” Shane took in a breath, and then summoned his magic.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, the wife was sick these last couple days and I've been taking care of her. Also, whoops, we've caught up to where I'd written so now I have to write and edit one after the other. Hahaha.... I should try to get ahead of things again.
> 
> I've taken another walk back to the past when it comes to music. This time I've gone to The Moody Blues, specifically the album I used to listen to on a cassette tape for years as a child/young teen. Amazingly enough, I still know these songs word for word. I'm most impressed with myself. There's something kind of magical about this album, and I highly recommend it. It's [In Search of the Lost Chord](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVOYDgXAn1KLyavlJmi3zb-VMv49xasi4) and it's great. I used to think the album was called The House of Four Doors for some reason. Ah yes, childhood me.

Once the hotel room door was closed behind Shane, Ryan, TJ and the demon, a heavy silence weighed down the space. Shane turned from the door to look at Ryan, who was sitting with TJ on one bed, and then over to the demon, who seemed to be the most at ease of all of them. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, stepping into the room to pull the attention onto himself.

Everyone’s coming out story is a little different. Sometimes they’re pleasantly surprised by how people react, sometimes they expect it to be no big deal and it is. Shane isn’t sure how many people have had themselves outed and then needed to explain themselves before. Probably more people than he realizes. No doubt he’s not the first to have to deal with this sort of experience, but he can’t help wishing that things just hadn’t happened this way.

“So, I’m a unicorn,” Shane said with a broad sweeping motion of his hands. He wanted to try to keep this part light, maybe. Hide how terrifying it was to know that humans, regular people, knew what he was. This could have gotten him killed, or ostracized, when he was young. Of course, there would have been other unicorns around at the time to do the ostracizing, but the idea had never quite left him. If he told, he was doomed to a life of solitary. If he was really doomed, he’d be captured by humans and harvested for years. Those were the horror stories anyway. He didn’t really think there were people who would know what to do with unicorn parts these days, but childhood fears weren’t the kind of thing one could just rationalize away. Not without a decent amount of time to do the rationalizing.

Reaching for the desk chair, he sat in it backwards and let out a long breath. He certainly had everyone’s attention, three pairs of eyes were completely focused on him and he gave a small little smile. “It’s… it’s a secret, obviously, I haven’t ever told anyone before.”

“Not anyone?” Ryan asked. His voice was a little shaky, and his eyes were the widest of everyone’s. It was no surprise to Shane really, Ryan had been hoping to come to this sort of conclusion for years now, and Shane had been the one to shatter the illusion of normalcy, as his mother used to say. He shook his head. 

“Not anyone.” He licked his lips and looked at Ryan, holding his gaze. More than anything he wanted Ryan to know that Ryan was special, that Ryan was someone he would have told, if given enough time and maybe a little push. Ryan was important to him, he didn’t keep Ryan in the dark because he thought it was a grand romp and a hilarious idea. He did it because his survival was the first and foremost thought in his head. ‘Don’t ever tell a human what you are,’ was the mantra he’d lived by for hundreds of years. It wasn’t easy to just go against everything he’d been raised to believe and trust a human. Even now it was frightening. “And I’m more than 5 years older than you are, so…. Yeah. This is a big deal.”

“Wow,” the demon said. “I mean, even *I’ve* told a couple of people I’m a demon. I know it’s all taboo and shit, but really? No one?”

“You’re a demon,” Shane said with a roll of his eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to play by the rules.”

“That’s rather speciesist, isn’t it?” the demon said, although he was grinning as he said it.

“Yeah, sure.” Shane gave him the flattest look he could and the demon laughed at him. It worked to calm Shane down a little at least. He didn’t know when he’d clenched his hands into fists, but they were easing open and he wasn’t so stiff in the chair anymore.

“I’m still not okay with the fact that there’s a demon here,” Ryan said with a quick glance at said demon.

“He can’t hurt you Ryan, not with me here,” Shane said firmly. “I wouldn’t let him.”

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone!” the demon said. He tossed his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes. “I haven’t… I’m not that kind anyway. I’m more of a trickster demon, I’m not big on the blood and maiming stuff. Ick.” The demon shivered and wiped his palms on his pants.

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Ryan said, but he looked over at Shane. “What you said makes me feel better, but not what the demon said. Jesus Shane. Why didn’t you just tell me when I got that footage of you before? Why’d you still hide it?”

“A lot of reasons.” Shane sighed. He didn’t want to talk about the footage again, but more than that he needed to keep the subject on the demon and what just happened because if he lost track of that they could be talking about this for hours. Shane knew how Ryan could get involved in trying to chase a lead, or a thought. “But we can talk about that later. I think I need to know what this guy was going to tell me before we got interrupted by that woman.”

TJ held up his hand then and Shane looked over at him. “Do you have a name?” he asked, as he looked over at the demon. “I don’t really believe in any of this stuff and my brain is really hating that you’re being called a demon all the time. A name would be good.”

“Oh, it’s Dave.” The demon held out his hand to TJ. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” TJ didn’t take the hand, but he did nod once. “TJ.”

“I don’t think I want you to know my name,” Ryan said.

“Oh, I already know who you are,” Dave said with a grin. “I actually really enjoy watching your show. It’s hilarious. I’m a bit of a fan. It’s good to meet you Ryan.”

“This is unbelievable,” Ryan hissed and Shane pressed his forehead into the chair.

“I don’t know how I feel knowing that Ryan has a demon fan,” he muttered. “A *demon* fan. What the fuck is my life anymore?”

“Yeah, okay Dave. Go on, I’m just going to be silent over here now.” TJ moved further up the bed and relaxed against the headboard.

“Great now that introductions are over,” Shane said with a wave at, at… “Dave”. He lifted his head and looked over at Dave. “What the hell did you want?”

“Well, as I said, I thought I was being watched. Followed everywhere, eyes on me at all times kind of thing. I was feeling a bit paranoid you know? At least now I know that there was reason.” Dave took in a deep breath and scratched at his hand. “I kinda felt the desire to kill but that’s something I feel enough that I didn’t know if it was juts my paranoia, or if there was something I had to worry about. Guess I should have been more worried.”

“You said something about doorways too,” Shane said with a frown. The concept of doorways intrigued him even if he didn’t understand their significance.

“Yeah, the doorways between realms. I think someone is closing them.” Dave looked at Shane. “But you don’t know what I’m talking about, so I don’t really know what else to do. You’re the first unicorn I’ve seen in a really, really long time. I haven’t even seen a messenger in forever.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shane bit his lip. First time in forever he’s met another creature like himself and it didn’t take long for Shane to feel like a child all over again. He’d lost the others, how could he learn about this stuff if they weren’t around to learn from? “I understood what you meant by keeping the balance, but doorways are new to me.”

_‘We keep the balance, its our primary function,’ his mother used to say to him. ‘Balance is key, an upset balance can destroy everything. Good and evil must fight for power, but ultimately neither of them can have the upper hand. It can be hard to know who is doing better, but the life force will tell you everything you need to know.’_

_‘Does that mean we have to sometimes do bad things mama?’ he’d asked, pawing at the ground, eager to be running through the forest, wishing he could leave because the lectures were so boring._

_‘Not exactly. Sometimes we have to let bad things happen though. For the good of everyone, for the good of everything.’_

He hadn’t ever really gotten further than that in details because he’d always managed to run off before getting them. Maybe that had been his fault, but he’d been young, and the earth was rich in smells and feelings and all he’d wanted was to be a part of it. His mother had fondly called him a dasher, but it hadn’t bothered him. Eventually he always came back. Until the moment he couldn’t quite find his way back and everyone was gone.

“Well, you know, there are realms that are filled with more magic than others, for instance, and you know how we could travel between them before, and now we can’t?” Dave squinted at Shane. “Any bells ringing here?”

“Sorry,” Shane said with a shrug. “No.” The very idea of realms was confusing. He hadn’t noticed other realms. The idea of multiple universes wasn’t unheard of, but it was still just that, an idea. If there was any fact to the idea, he didn’t know it.

“So, magic is real?” Ryan asked, eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Yes, I mean, you saw me use it very recently to toss a body out of a window and land it perfectly on a piece of rebar Ryan. How else do you think I did that?” Shane asked with a little huff of a laugh.

“I mean, you’re the skeptic Shane,” Ryan snapped, face flushing. “I’m used to trying to defend my beliefs but not from this side of the argument.”

“That’s true,” Shane grinned.

“Look!” Dave said, standing up and waving his hands in the air. There was a frantic nature to his movements now, sweat standing out on his forehead. “Not that I don’t love getting a front row seat to your incessant flirting, but this is bad, okay! If the doors are all closed, and I don’t know where all of them are I only know where some are so I can’t check them or anything, then it’ll block off all creatures into different realms. It’ll prevent us from traveling between them, it’ll tie up magic, it could cause really disastrous things to happen!”

“Like what?” Shane asked. “Since you know all about it, you must know what the consequences are.” He tilted his head to one side and the demon threw up his hands and slumped back down in the chair.

“I don’t know. I just know that it disrupts the balance of the realms, and that’s bad. I mean, there was a campaign like, a couple thousand years ago to do that very thing but we were stopped really early on by the combined forces of unicorns, the fae, and some sort of angelic army. So I know that it’s bad.” Dave looked up at the ceiling of the room and grinned. “Man, I was so young back then. Took one look at that really bright force, that unicorn queen just stepping into the bowels of the sulfur realm like she had no fear and I hid like a child behind a volcano.” He laughed and shook his head. “There’d never been such unfiltered light there before.”

“Unicorn Queen?” Shane said softly, his heart beating a little faster. There was no way he was talking about… well, maybe but…

“Yeah. She had a name, I know that, but I don’t remember what it was. Something that started with a S sound, and it was really hard to pronounce. Her eyes were a bright purple and she had this light star shaped scar on her left shoulder.” Dave looked over at Shane. “Her voice echoed through the entire realm. There was no fighting, we just… stopped.”

Swallowing, Shane nodded his head. Hearing the description of his mother from the eyes of a demon was incredibly strange. “Did you ever see her again?” he asked softly.

“No. When she left, our leaders held a meeting, we were told never to touch the doorways, and that was that. I’ll never forget it though. Why?”

“No, nothing,” Shane said with a shake of his head. For some reason things were hitting him really hard.

He stood up and turned away from all of them. A couple hundred years since he’d seen his mother, and just hearing a description of her made his heart hurt. Lifting a hand to his chest, he took in several deep breaths to steady the shaking going through him. If there were different realms, that would explain some of his wandering as a child and young stallion. He might have gone from realm to realm not understanding what he was doing. Closing those off would mean that the other creatures wouldn’t be able to move freely. That meant… he wasn’t finding other creatures, other beings, because they couldn’t get here. Head starting to throb, he leaned forward and put it against the wall and closed his eyes. He didn’t know what to do with this information though.

“So what you’re saying,” TJ’s voice said, soft but solid. “Is that something really dangerous is going on, but you don’t know how, or who, or why and you were hoping that Shane would have answers?”

“Yes.” Shane let out a breath as he heard Dave’s reply. He had no answers. “Which, now I can see, is not going to happen because Shane doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”

Silence settled over the room then, for so long that Shane was starting to get uncomfortable. Just as he was about to say something though, Ryan spoke.

“Well,” Ryan said and there was the sound of people moving. Or maybe it was just Ryan. “Then there’s nothing else you can tell us right now. So, there’s a lot to break down, and I think… I think I need some time alone with Shane now. Do you have a room? A number?”

“Yeah,” TJ’s voice was nearer to Shane than Shane expected so maybe he’d gotten up as well. Shane wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything. He lifted a hand to touch his damp cheeks. Emotions were swirling through him, but he couldn’t quite touch them with his mind for the moment. It was like his body was feeling for him, but his mind was detached. Or something.

“Sure, sure.” Dave cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you my cell and give you two some time. No problem.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” TJ said. “Take care of him.”

“I will,” Ryan said and it sounded like a promise. Shane didn’t move, he couldn’t, and once the door was closed, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hey there big guy.”

“Hey,” Shane said with a cough. Was something lodged in his throat? It kind of felt like there was.

“I know this is a lot, but we can break it down, right? We will. Then we’ll make a plan, just like the treasure hunting, only we’ll be more successful with this. So just, take a moment right?”

Shane turned around then, and stared at Ryan, who’s eyes traveled over Shane’s cheeks in surprise. Then Shane practically flung himself into Ryan’s arms, holding him close, unable to explain why he needed the contact so badly.

“Yeah,” Ryan said as he wrapped his arms around Shane and held him back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.” Shane didn’t really believe him, but he was going to bury that disbelief and take what Ryan said at face value. He needed that right now.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a hefty chapter. It took a little longer to get it all done than expected. Whoops.
> 
> Anyway, I edited today to Castle Walls, the song the title of this story is from. Somehow it just kind of fit today. The link to the song is in the first chapter. Enjoy! :)

For several, long, moments they remained still, Ryan holding Shane, Shane holding Ryan, locked into a little bubble of understanding and need. For Shane, it was the rush of *other* that had invaded his more or less mundane life that was pushing at him and causing him stress. For Ryan it was no doubt the whole, “I was right after all” thing mixed in with, “Holy Shit I was right after all!” Being held close had a calming effect on both of them and when Shane finally pulled away he was able to wipe at his face and take in a few steadying breaths.

“Feel better?” Ryan asked and Shane nodded.

“Yeah, thanks.” Usually he was able to close his feelings away, hidden down deep for use when it suited him. A part of him had completely given up on finding anything, and now he had, and he had an idea of what might be going on, yet he had no idea what the fuck to do about it. No doubt this was his fault for running off when he was still young, but all his other siblings had done so, it was sort of the thing *to* do at his age.

“Good. Me too.” Ryan nodded his head and Shane gave him a small smile. Taking in a deep breath, Ryan let it out slowly and the looked up at Shane, his eyes narrowing. “You absolute *fucker*!” he snapped out. “How dare you! How could you?”

The change between acceptance and care to angry threw Shane a bit and he took a step back from Ryan in surprise. “What?”

“You *never* told me?! Why the ever-loving hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I… I said I couldn’t, remember? We just had this conversation.” Shane stumbled over his words, wishing they didn’t have to go into this, like, ever again. He felt like he’d explained it enough already.

“Not the part where you explain why you didn’t say anything when I got that footage of a unicorn. Of *you*! You wove this elaborate tale about the forest and sanctuaries, and you know I thought about it a lot and I realized you were right, but you weren’t, were you? Because the fucking unicorn was standing right next to me telling me lies!” His voice kept raising and Shane was beginning to worry about other people hearing them. He raised his hands but Ryan stepped past them, leaning in with a glare. “Lies! I didn’t realize unicorns lied so much.”

“It wasn’t a lie, it was a misdirect,” Shane said. He stepped back again, but then he ran against the wall and there was nowhere else to go. When Ryan got going, really got good and angry, there was no where to hide really.

“A misdirect?” Ryan shook his head and snorted. “You asshole.”

“Yes, it is a quality I possess. Assholishness. You usually like that about me.” Shane tried to add a bit of levity to the situation but Ryan wasn’t having it. Of course he wasn’t, he was Ryan and he was righteously mad at Shane.

“Plus all these years you’ve been lying to me about there being supernatural forces out in the world! You’re a goddamned supernatural force Shane! *You* are!” His hands flailed in the air for several moments and he shook his head in frustration.

“I mean, I didn’t really… I…” Shane took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting the air out slowly. He needed to get a handle on this situation or Ryan was going to let the entire hotel know there were supernatural forces in the world. Shane wondered what they’d think, if they’d believe him, or if they’d just laugh about the crazies in room 304. “Ryan,” he said gently, hoping his tone would help settle the other man. “I have been looking for the last two hundred years for another supernatural force. For the last hundred of those years I’ve been in my human shape.” He opened his eyes again and stared at Ryan, who’s eyes had gotten almost comically wide. “Can you even comprehend how long that is?”

“No,” Ryan breathed.

“No.” Shane nodded and licked his lips. “Its a very long time. A long time in which I’ve had partners, friends, almost got married once even. But I still *never* told anyone what I was. It was ingrained into the very fibre of my being to keep it a secret. Even if there was no one who would believe anymore, even if there was no one else to protect, I still had me, didn’t I? So I had to protect myself. I’ve been alone… the only one of my kind that I could find, all this time. It’s incredibly lonely.” He swallowed and looked away from the horrified look Ryan was now giving him. It wasn’t horror he wanted Ryan to feel, he needed him to *understand* the weight of this secret. The importance of telling Ryan, of risking Ryan finding out. “Yet, being with you somehow changed that. Spending these few years working on this dumb show together, stomping around and searching *with* someone, even if that someone didn’t know about me, eased that pain. Why, for any deities sake, would I want to change that?”

“Are you telling me you were scared?” Ryan whispered and Shane nodded his head right away. “Of me?” Now he shook his head.

“Of what would change. Of how *you* would change. Of what you might ask of me.” Shane looked over at Ryan finally, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. The last bit was the hardest to say, and the thing he worried about the most. “Of what you would think of me once you knew.”

“It doesn’t change *anything*!” Ryan gasped out, hands grabbing at Shane’s shirt and holding onto it. “Why would it change anything?”

“Because you want proof.” His voice was flat as he tried to keep himself from freaking out. This was it, after this there wasn’t really going to be any secrets from Ryan, there was no going back. Shane didn’t move away from Ryan, not that he had anywhere to go, but he did wave a hand at himself. “How long before you asked me to show up and do a real show for the camera? How long before people found out because there was always a unicorn around you? How long before… anything? Before some woman tries to kill me I guess.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you!” Ryan said. “Of course I wouldn’t!”

“You wouldn’t think of it as something that could hurt me. You’re always so enthusiastic, always have so much optimism in everything, but I *don’t*!” Shane shook his head. “I don’t.” His optimism was very localized, and usually focused on Ryan these days.

“So then we fight about it, and we go away and think, and come back and make a decision together. Like we always do.” Ryan shook him a few times. “Like we did with the unicorn, with *your*, footage.”

“Well, that kind of just happened and I haven’t had a chance to settle down about that yet so you can maybe give me a little slack on not telling you the rest,” he snapped out without thinking. Shane took in several quick, deep breaths. Now was not the time for anger, he needed to be chill and calm because Ryan was the one losing his shit. “Plus… you know, I didn’t know how to tell you. As I said, I’ve never done this before, I’ve never told anyone. Then there was that incident over the footage and I freaked out. As you could tell. I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to tell you, I did, but I was scared and I tried to say what I meant using different words, you know?”

“Those are very different words. It’s a whole different story.” Ryan sounded a little calmer and Shane reached out and touched Ryan’s cheek.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He didn’t want Ryan to hate him, or to be scared of him, or any number of other things that Ryan could do. He’d heard tales, back when he was younger, about what would happen if humans found out what he was.

“I guess I’ll forgive you.” Ryan snorted then and let go of Shane’s shirt. “I know why you have so much limb now though. You’re supposed to be a horse.”

“Hey,” Shane said with a frown. “I told you horses and unicorns are totally different species!”

“Yeah, but you both have a lot of legs,” Ryan said with a laugh. Shane held the frown for a moment more, but then started laughing as well. They were going to be okay, probably. If Ryan was back to banter and smiles then they were going to be okay.

“And you call *me* the asshole,” Shane said fondly.

“Yeah, I do.”

There was a moment more of laughter, and then Ryan stepped back enough that Shane’s hand slipped off of Ryan’s cheek. He instantly missed how close Ryan had been, even though Ryan seemed much less angry now. Ryan’s eyes went wide again.

“Oh fuck,” Ryan breathed out. “You… you… you’re a *unicorn*!”

Now what, Shane wondered as he nodded and raised his eyebrows at Ryan. “Yes, I thought you’d had this revelation already.”

“No, but like, it’s the virgin thing.” Now he was flailing his hands in the air again. Shane’s frown deepened.

“What virgin thing?” he asked slowly.

“The *virgin* thing!” Ryan said louder, eyes going wide and cheeks flushing. “The unicorn virgin thing!”

“Ryan,” Shane said with a warning tone as he began to pick up what Ryan was suggesting, not liking where this conversation was going at all.

“What? Did you know? Did you know because you’re a unicorn? Was that why you wanted to be with me?” He asked all those questions in a quick succession and Shane rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Are you fucking serious right now Ryan?” Shane said with a glare. “I know you aren’t a virgin. You’ve had sex with several women.”

“But never with a guy before you!” Ryan said in a rush, his face going very, very red.

Shane blinked a few times. That was a shock. “You hadn’t? I mean, I wouldn’t have ever known, given the way you wanted it, and like, the way you were so into it, and how you weren’t at all scared or nervous.” It had been fucking wonderful, and if Ryan wasn’t spilling all these ridiculous facts out right now, Shane would have gone on to assume that Ryan had been with a guy before Shane. Besides, the whole unicorn virgin thing was utterly ridiculous.

“I hadn’t!” Ryan snapped. “You were totally my first gay encounter. It’s not like everyone is all blushing and fumbling when it comes to first times. Some of us prepare for it.” He was mumbling by the end and looking at the floor instead of at Shane.

“Well no, I didn’t know!” Shane snapped back. *His* face was going red now. “I can’t know that! It’s a stupid thing that humans made up, okay? We don’t care for virgins anymore than we care for non virgins. It’s dumb Ryan, and I expect better out of you!”

“Well how was I gonna know without asking?” Ryan cried out, finally looking back up at Shane and Shane flapped his hands in the air himself a few times.

“I mean, you could have just asked instead of going all crazy about it. Jesus Ryan.” Shane closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s the stupidest stereotype ever and it has nothing at all to do with virginity.”

“What?”

“It’s about the kind of magic someone has. It’s not even about purity. The idea of virginity and unicorns came about because of two different things. Firstly, there was an area we used to hang out in a lot and the men there were trying to keep the women in check by telling them that the unicorns would come out and tell them if the women were “pure” or not. If the unicorns didn’t come out then they assumed the women were not pure and they’d either put them to death or they’d sell them to husbands as used property. This got to be really ridiculous because if we didn’t come out, then we’d find out what happened to the girls and that was disgusting. Then we’d just kind of come out all the time for a while, but the women who had had sex were called enchantresses who hoodwinked the “innocent” unicorns and they were killed for that. So some of the older unicorns just got really angry, killed off all the bastards in the village and left the area completely.”

He took in a deep breath and shook his head. “So that started some rumors. Secondly, as you’ve seen, unicorns are really quite strong and fierce, and we used to guard treasures for other people, other supernatural people. Then some of us went and changed forms and became guards for humans. We were good at fighting, and then we were in charge of more and more precious things, which started becoming the daughters of kings and other royalty. One of us fell in love with a princess she was guarding, and she was found mid sex with said princess when her father came to visit. The unicorn changed forms, swept the princess onto her back, jumped out of the castle window and took the girl away. The king said it was because his daughter was pure that the unicorn wanted to keep her. All of that bullshit got tangled up over the years and it turned into the ridiculous notion that all unicorns have hard on’s for the pure and virginal. Which is just ridiculous and I am utterly horrified that you would fall for such propaganda.” Shane was a little out of breath because he’d just spouted two of his childhood tales in the shortest forms he could in quick succession. This had been part of his history and he’d always thought the connection between unicorn and virgin was gross.

“If you *must* know,” Shane went on. “There *is* something unicorns are innately attracted to. It’s a kind of magic, white versus colored. This is both because it’s a very rare magic, and because it’s the most like ours. We can manipulate and use it more easily than any other kind of magic. I’m sure some asshole made the leap from white magic to pure magic, which it fucking well isn’t, and used that to spin another thread of rumor to unicorns. I haven’t seen anyone with white magic since I was young. It’s that kind of rare.”

“But it’s not about virginity?” Ryan asked, poking a little more, but now at least he sounded a bit sheepish.

“No. It’s not.” Shane glared. “Virginity is a societal concept that’s archaic and dumb Ryan. You aren’t less or more for having had sex. You’re just a person, either way.”

“So… you aren’t more attracted to me than other people because of it?”

“Why are you pressing this? I *told* you…” Shane trailed off as he stared at Ryan. Then he straightened. “Are you worried about the sex we had? About how you were when we had sex?”

“I mean, no…” Ryan said as he looked away from Shane, leading Shane to not believe him in the slightest. “I had sex with a fucking unicorn. That’s kind of… I mean… a big deal.” Now his voice was very soft, and very nervous.

“I’m just a guy Ryan,” Shane said gently. Jesus, he’d never expected he’d have to worry about this aspect at all when he’d considered telling Ryan what he was. “I’m no more or less what I was before.”

“You’re more Shane,” Ryan protested. “You’re so much more. You’re a *unicorn*.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I had sex with a unicorn. I’m talking to a unicorn. I don’t even know what to think of that.”

“It’s just another facet to who I am,” Shane said, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. “It doesn’t change anything, does it? Not anything really important.”

“Doesn’t it?” Ryan blinked and looked up at Shane. “Doesn’t it?”

“No.” Shane stepped forward and now Ryan was backing up. He kept walking until the bed hit Ryan’s knees and Ryan fell onto the bed. Straddling the other man, he gently pushed Ryan on his back on the bed. “It doesn’t change anything for me. You’re still Ryan, and I’m still Shane. I just now know about your weird retention of specific fairy tale details and you know I can change shape.”

“It’s more than that,” Ryan said and Shane shrugged.

“The rest we’ll just have to figure out along the way. Okay? Can we do that?” He didn’t want to lose this, he didn’t want to worry that Ryan would leave just because of what he was. That was the biggest fear, next to the being outed fear. Ryan was the most important thing to him, and he couldn’t lose him now. Shane leaned down and kissed Ryan’s lips gently. He didn’t think that Ryan was going to leave him, but he had to show why that would be a bad idea, just in case.

“Yeah,” Ryan said in between kisses. “Okay, we can do that.”

“Good.” Then Shane was kissing down Ryan’s neck, and Ryan’s hands reached up and clung to Shane’s shoulders.

They would have gotten further, except there was a scream outside and Shane lifted his head, smelling blood, and a lot of it. “What the fuck?” he said, scrambling off the bed. Ryan was right behind him.

When Shane opened the door the first thing he saw was a police officer, drenched in blood, TJ in his arms with a knife pressed to TJ’s throat. The next thing he saw was Dave, in two places in the hallway. One side of the police officer was Dave’s body, the other side was Dave’s head. Blood was splattered between the two parts and was all across both TJ and the police officer.

“Hi there,” the officer said, giving Shane a grin. “I think it’s time for you to leave your friends and come with me.”

“What the hell?” Shane gasped out, looking at the ground, and then up to TJ. “What are you doing?” Was this guy related to the crazy woman? How had he gotten here and had he stolen the uniform?

“I don’t really want to have to tell you twice. I get more antsy the longer I have to wait for an answer. Just come with me and nothing happens to your friends.”

The sensible thing to do was probably to say no but TJ… and Ryan… Shane looked over at Ryan. He couldn’t let anything happen to them, they were his friends.

“Don’t do it,” Ryan said with a shake of his head. “No, don’t do it.”

“Shane,” TJ said carefully. “Bad idea listening to the madman.”

“I have to,” Shane said. He reached out and touched Ryan’s shoulder briefly. “Of course I have to.”

“No, Shane, don’t do it!” Ryan cried out, reaching for Shane, but Shane stepped over the blood on the ground before Ryan could touch him.

“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Let TJ go and I’ll come with you. I won’t fight.” Shane held up his hands. “See?”

The officer nodded, took a couple steps back and then flung TJ at Ryan. In a quick move he was turning and grabbing hold of Shane’s arm. “Smart,” he said as he began tugging Shane down the hall.

“No! Shane!” Ryan called and Shane glanced back.

“I’ll be okay Ryan,” he said, feeling like they’d already had this conversation once that night. “You just hang tight.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a week. Sorry for the delay. 
> 
> I don't really have a song that I listened to while editing this week. I actually just set a playlist on random and was able to edit with it. The playlist was for last year's NaNoWriMo story, which I did not in fact finish, and so the songs were pretty wild and varied. I think though, that it knew what section of this story I was in and it picked songs out accordingly so that was interesting.
> 
> I started with [The Mystic's Dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFAfWH_CKVw) by Loreena McKennitt.  
> There was [Sail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CaypEojjKQ) by Awolnation.  
> [I Don't Care](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDMiuMARLAs) by Apocalyptica.  
> [Paint it, Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYPWxymohWs) done by Ciara.  
> [Boadicea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKQwgpaLR6o) by Enya.  
> [Forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQWYwkpmRA) by Queen.  
> [Monsters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqZxbr_0cSY) by Ruelle.  
> And I ended with [Nothing Else Matters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7bIbVlIqEc) by Metallica.
> 
> That isn't the exact order, because I was editing, which means sometimes the songs didn't fully register as I worked. Anyway, I know that's a weird and eclectic mix of stuff. But I listen to almost all musics so....

There was blood soaking into the carpet. There was *blood* soaking into the carpet. There was blood *soaking* into the carpet. There was blood soaking into the *carpet* and Ryan’s whole body was shaking.

“Oh my God,” Ryan gasped out finally. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” He might pass out, but for real this time. What the hell was wrong with this day? He’d really like to be kind, rewind, and start the night over and not go into that damned hospital.

“Ryan,” TJ said calmly, one hand touching his shoulder. It was a little grounding, but Ryan couldn’t tear his eyes away from the blood to look at TJ. “Ryan, we have to go after them.”

“There’s blood everywhere,” Ryan said hysterically, motioning to the ground. “We can’t just leave, can we? I mean, we’re… I… oh God.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t fucking know what to do!”

“Hey,” Dave’s voice said, coming from the floor. “I can’t reach my head, could you get it closer to my body so I can reattach?”

Ryan screamed, opened his eyes and stared down at the head lying in blood that was blinking at him. He flailed his hands and then ended up kicking the head in the general direction of the body, stepping further away from the insanity happening on the ground.

“That’s not okay,” TJ said simply. Ryan glanced up at him and saw him give a little nod to the head of Dave. “I’m not okay with talking, dismembered bodies.”

“Well I’m sorry,” Dave said sarcastically and a giggle of horror escaped Ryan. It almost sounded like Shane for a moment. “I can’t help that a simple beheading won’t work on me.” His body began to move, the arms reaching up to grab at the head. “Also, ow!”

“You’re… you’re… I can’t even with how you’re talking to me and everything is happening and I can’t… I can’t….” Ryan leaned back against the wall and wondered why there wasn’t police around. Well, there had been, hadn’t there? Only Ryan wasn’t sure that was an actual police officer, and if it was then that explained why there wasn’t more yet he supposed. Maybe. Oh God, Dave was standing up.

“How… are you still alive?” TJ asked and Ryan shook his head a few times as though just not believing Dave had been in two places a moment ago would make that the truth instead of this…. Whatever this was.

“It takes more than a beheading. I’m old, I require more effort.” Dave shrugged as he wobbled. Ryan didn’t reach out to offer him a steadying hand. “Where’s Shane?”

“He’s gone,” Ryan whispered. Now he wanted to cry. “The guy that beheaded you took him.”

“No.” Dave looked from Ryan to TJ, who was nodding. “You idiots! How could you let them get away?”

“I didn’t *let* anything happen to him!” Ryan snapped, focusing entirely on Dave. Fuck this asshole for assuming that Ryan would just *let* someone take Shane. Fury took the place of horror. “The guy was threatening TJ, with a goddamned knife, and Shane wouldn’t let anything happen to him. He took TJ’s place so TJ would be safe!”

“Shane is a fucking *unicorn* and you let the bad guys walk out with him! He could keep the balance!” Dave glared at Ryan, who was glaring right back. It wasn’t like Ryan could have physically stopped the guy.

“I don’t know what that means! And you weren’t alive when things were going down, you couldn’t help, and neither could either of us. Don’t get all high and mighty on *us* pal, you were down for the count.” Ryan leaned forward but didn’t get too close to Dave, because honestly the smell of blood was starting to turn his stomach.

“We have to stop him,” Dave said with a shake of his head. “We can’t let him push Shane out of this realm. That could really fuck everything up.”

“Everything’s already fucked up,” Ryan moaned. He rubbed a hand over his throbbing temples. Just yesterday the biggest thing he had to worry about was whether or not it would be against company policy to have sex while shooting on location. Now he had to worry about demons, unicorns and the possibility of never seeing Shane again for the rest of his life.

“No, not yet.” Dave wiped a hand down his face and slicked some of the blood off of himself. “It’s a shame about these clothes though, all this blood won’t come out.”

“I can’t even,” Ryan said again, wondering briefly when he would be able to “can” again.

“Let’s take my car,” Dave said as he started walking down the hallway. “I can follow Shane’s magic.”

“What about the blood? What about what happened?” Ryan asked, but he was following Dave. He wanted to get to Shane just as badly as Dave did. Probably more badly.

“Ehh, I don’t care, it’s not like I’m going back there any time soon.” Dave shrugged and Ryan resisted the urge to smack him. Would a demon who’d just been beheaded lose his head again if he was smacked upside it? Ryan didn’t want to know.

“I will be, so will TJ!” Ryan said as he glanced to the side. TJ had kept in step with him, silently. It felt pretty good to have him nearby, even if he was so quite that Ryan hadn’t been sure he was even there.

“Oh well, I guess you’ll figure it out.” Dave was out of the hotel and to a battered old car in no time, Ryan and TJ right behind him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“You’re terrible,” Ryan said, getting into the passenger’s side when Dave got behind the wheel. Dave gave him a smile that was all teeth.

“Yeah, I know.”

“That wasn’t a complement!” Ryan snapped. He was going insane. That was the only explanation to him being in the car with a demon and TJ, both of which were covered in blood. Or maybe that was the only solution. Go insane fully so one could handle the stress.

“Yeah, I know.” Then Dave winked and started the car. “Now let me concentrate. The sooner we get to Shane, the sooner we can keep this guy from killing him, or worse, sending him away.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said with a nod. He didn’t want to lose Shane, not now, not ever. Especially when Shane had just opened up about something he’d been hiding his whole life. They were supposed to be moving forward. Ryan wanted to move forward.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You saw right, there's only one chapter left to this book.
> 
> Edited to [Bad Moon Rising](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSQC7uTykfk) done by Mourning Ritual. If you've seen Teen Wolf up through Season 3B (what idiot decided on doing a 3A and a 3B? They aren't related enough to warrant the A/B status, just call it season 3 and season 4. *grumbles forever*) then this song should bring to mind a hospital and a delightfully evil Stiles and all the good things that scene gave us. If you haven't, then just revel in the delight of a dark song done very, very well.

“Don’t you think this is overkill?” Shane asked as he was tied to a tree in the middle of a forest. It *felt* like overkill, the ropes were magically laced and kind of hurt. Plus it wasn’t like Shane had ever done anything to warrant being tied to a tree in the middle of the woods.

The only reason he was even in this situation was because he’d walked carefully with the madman to the police car, lights were flashing and everything, figuring it would look better if he was seen cooperating with the police than resisting arrest. Shane worked for a company that placed videos on the internet, he knew how viral things could get and the last thing he wanted was a lawsuit. Problem was as soon as he got to the car and was being put in, he’d been injected with something. That had stung, both actually and his pride. Whatever had been in the syringe had knocked him out cold, at least until they were at the forest, which sang him awake. Even now it was singing, a light chorus of magic infused into each branch and each patch of grass. It felt nice, even though he was fairly certain this man was going to try to kill him. It was an odd dichotomy, the feeling of worry and fear for his life mixed with the overwhelming calm and peace of the forest. He wondered which emotion was going to win out.

“No. Nothing is overkill when you’re trying to rid the world of pests.” The man sneered at Shane and then tightened the ropes some more, a small oof leaving Shane as he did. Shane tried to move, tried to twist to get free, or at least get them a little looser but it was no use. Rope burn was no joke.

“I’m not a pest,” Shane protested, glaring at the man, who was now taking out a staff from the car and bringing it over to where Shane was. “I mean, maybe some of the people who are close to me might say that, but it’s done in a teasing and loving sort of way, not in an actually angry I’m around kind of way. You don’t even know me, I might be the most lovely person you ever met.” If he kept the man talking, maybe it would keep him from finishing whatever it was he was doing.

“You’re a creature, you don’t belong here, so you’re a pest. We’re going to finish eradicating all the pests, and close the doors behind you.” He thumped the staff into the ground and began making a circle in the dirt, chanting something as he did so. Shane couldn’t hear what he was chanting, but he could feel magic being drawn to the line and the man.

“I’m not a creature, I’m just a normal human being,” Shane said, speaking as loudly as he could, hoping it messed the man up. Anything to give him a little time, a little hope. “Come on, I have a show on youtube all about my search for creatures, and we’ve never found anything. I’m so human.”

For a few moments the man didn’t say anything else but the chanting, and then he was all the way around the tree and Shane could feel the circle close. A door was slammed in his face, impenetrable, solid, glowing faintly blue. There was the inside, where Shane was, and there was the outside, where the man was. It was a physical barrier now, it was so strong. Taking in a slow, deep breath, Shane held it for a moment and then let it go. Whatever this guy was planning, it was big, for him to call up so much power. That didn’t make Shane feel any better.

“If you were human, those ropes wouldn’t have tied around you, they wouldn’t have let me.” The man laughed and tilted his head back as he did. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, and it echoed through the trees. Shane reached with his fingers to try to tap into the magic, there was so much of it that the hair was rising off his neck with it. Problem with being a magical creature like he was, was that magic loved him, and wanted to be near him. Which was why it should be easy for him to touch it, to manipulate it, but it was like it was just outside of his reach. He just… couldn’t touch it. Must be the ropes, some sort of spell to detach him from the rest of the world.

“I think you used the wrong ropes my dude,” Shane said, struggling a little more, rope burn be damned. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He had a life here, friends, other friends who were nearly family, Ryan. This was his home, and it had been for so long he didn’t even really remember this thing about doors and realms. What was he even doing to hurt anyone? Nothing, that was what. He shouldn’t be punished because of what he was born as. That was silly. He didn’t even approve of that as a storytelling device.

“I don’t have any other rope.” The grin Shane got was full of teeth and kind of smelled like tobacco. Which was an odd thing for Shane to be able to smell from so far away and with a circle of raw magic between them.

“You don’t know that,” Shane said. “Someone might have dropped perfectly normal ropes into your car when you weren’t looking.” His wrists were burning, and his body was twisting every which way. If only he could get some leverage.

“No one did that.” The man put down the staff and went back to the car, coming out with a box that he set down. Five candles came out, each one a different color. “You and your kind, never cared for the humans you trampled. So when the humans fought back, you got all angry, and wondered why we were upset. Well, we’re taking control. Total control of this world. It was our before it was yours.” He began to put down the candles, lighting them as he went.

“Now, you see, my kind never bothered the humans. Very hands off we were, always very hands off.” It wasn’t like people knew the truth. He wasn’t even sure if *he* knew the truth. Legends and myths could all be just that, and whoever wrote the stories were writing them from their point of view so there was that as well. Good way to make the majority of your people believe a thing, twist the narrative to make you sound like the right people. Governments and countries had been doing it for centuries.

“Doesn’t matter what you say. Only the truth matters.” He was done placing candles and Shane could feel the build of magic. Each element rushed through the circle. Earth at his feet, air through his hair, fire through his middle, water all around, binding him with a pentagram of power. Spirit rushed across the other four elements and did the final seal, trussing him up tighter than ever. It was actually a little hard to breathe at the moment.

“Fucking hell,” Shane muttered, pulling and straining and doing everything he could to try to get out of the ropes. He tapped into the magic of himself and began to shift forms, only to be stunted a moment after his horn grew out of his forehead. That wasn’t useful, not if he couldn’t cut the ropes with it. Plus the damned thing was heavy on a human head.

“Oh…” the man breathed, looking at Shane with wide eyes. “Oh, if I wasn’t instructed to close the door behind you, I’d keep you. For parts of course. I had no idea you were a unicorn.” He chuckled and Shane glared at him. “Do you know what unicorn hair sells for these days? So rare, you can’t even imagine. One strand is over a hundred thousand dollars. Only the very rich can do anything with unicorn parts. A scraping of your horn and…” He trailed off as he stared at Shane’s head, and if Shane could just tantalize him over the circle he might be able to break it, which would then at least need to be reformed.

“Nope,” Shane said, shaking his head, letting fear slip into his eyes. Make it seem like he’s terrified, lure him in. Come on, come on…

“Just a simple scraping…” Then he shook his head and blinked. “You demon!” he snarled. “Trying to tempt me, how dare you!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Shane said, backing his head away so fast he slammed it against the tree. That hurt. Not as much as the ropes, but his head was throbbing now.

“I’m going to send you away, and you’ll never find your way back!” Then he was chanting louder and Shane fought against the ropes, feeling them cut into his skin, the burning fading into sharp spikes of pain.

“You’re crazy! You know the doors were open for a reason, closing them could cause catastrophic effects you can’t even imagine right now!” Shane had no idea what he was saying, but he kept saying it, trying to distract, trying to keep the man from completing his spell.

Which he did way too fast. Suddenly there was a bright light, a circle appeared in the air in front of him, and on the other side was a forest Shane hadn’t seen in so long he’d almost thought he’d imagined it. Tears sprang to his eyes and began to stream down his face. His body struggled harder, faster, a need so great inside him he couldn’t control what he was doing. Then the circle grew closer, and in an instant he was on the other side.

He couldn’t help the change this time, his body was in pure form, no ropes, no tree holding him, no smell of tobacco or moss or burning things. There was just a rush of magic over him and a lightness to his heart he couldn’t quite contain. His eyes glanced back to the circle, and the lightness disappeared in a wash of fear.

There was Ryan, running towards him, screaming his name, tears leaving trails across his cheeks. Shane rushed towards the circle, but he didn’t make it, of course he didn’t, and it disappeared, taking the last image of Ryan with it. If Shane was very unlucky, that would be the last image of Ryan he’d ever have.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Final chapter! I edited it to the same song as the last chapter so I'm not going to bother reposting it here. In fact I basically edited both at the same time so I could post them not too far away from each other. Enjoy!

“There!” Dave said, his car skidding in the soft dirt as he rounded a few trees. In front of them was Shane, tied to a tree with his horn standing proudly on his forehead. The officer was chanting and then a circle of light appeared.

Dave rushed out of the car, and Ryan was right behind. “Shane!” he screamed, calling out as he ran. His heart had never beat so fast, his breath lost as he rushed forward. There were so many things they still had to do together, he couldn’t lose Shane now.

Then the circle washed over Shane and there was a flash of light so bright Ryan had to cover his eyes. “SHANE!” he screamed again. When he opened his eyes, watering and painful, he could see Shane in full unicorn form on the other side of the circle. Shane saw him, began to move towards him, but the circle collapsed on itself and Ryan was tackled to the ground in the next instant.

“NO!” Ryan twisted frantically to see what was going on, and TJ’s face was swimming in his vision. With a quick shake of his head, TJ kept Ryan down, hands holding him tightly.

“He’s got a gun Ryan,” he said softly and Ryan looked up to see the officer shooting Dave. Dave was grinning and the sound of gunfire cracked through the air. Ryan would think the officer was a terrible shot, because Dave didn’t stop moving, but every time there was a shot, Dave’s body jerked to one side or the other.

“What the hell are you?” the officer screamed in a panic as his gun ran out of bullets, and Ryan was actually a little happy the guy was just as clueless as Ryan had been the first time he’d met Dave. There was something to be said for finding out you had every reason to not make the connection because a big bad hunter person thing didn’t know either. Dave pounced then, tackling him to the ground and began punching.

“Yes indeed!” Dave said. He laughed as blood began to fly through the air. “Straight from Hell I am!” There was a part of Ryan that felt like maybe this was too much violence, and then he remembered that Shane was on the other side of some circle of light and who the fuck knew how he was getting him back. Anger and resentment rushed through him.

“Hit him again!” Ryan called out, his lip curling up.

“With pleasure.” Dave slammed the officer’s head into the ground and Ryan nudged at TJ.

“Let me up, he’s not going to shoot me now,” Ryan said and TJ nodded.

“Yeah, that’s fair.” TJ even gave him a hand up. Ryan kept his gaze completely focused on Dave and what he was doing. He’d never known he was so vindictive before. “What now though? I mean, where the hell did he send Shane? How am I even asking these questions?” He sighed and shook his head. “This has been a really surreal evening.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Ryan muttered. Then he rushed over to Dave. Under normal circumstances he would place a hand on Dave’s arm to telegraph his desire for Dave to stop, but there was so much blood involved, and dirt, and Ryan was trying to blot most of that out so he could function properly. Vindictiveness didn’t quite prepare you for a smashed in nose or the overwhelming scent of blood. If he spent too much time with Dave, that scent might get familiar, and he couldn’t help a little shiver as he considered that. “Okay, okay, his face is a mess. He won’t be able to answer questions if you kill him.”

“I don’t care really,” Dave said, but he did stop hitting the officer, letting his head flop to the ground. Blood oozed from a split lip, one eye was already swollen and the officer spit out a tooth. Ryan was going to pretend he didn’t see that.

“Where’d you send Shane?” Ryan asked as he focused on the matter at hand and not at the incredible amount of facial damage. The officer laughed, then choked.

“Someplace you’ll never find again. I sealed the door behind him, it’ll never open. Not for the likes of you.” The officer spit again and luckily it was only blood this time. For some reason that didn’t even register in Ryan’s mind and maybe he was already beginning to become desensitized to violence. What a terrible thought.

“Where!” he shouted.

“Nowhere!”

“Bring him back!” Ryan wanted to kick him, but Dave punched the man and that calmed Ryan down a bit. Kicking an officer of the law, even if said officer had killed someone and sent Shane off to some other dimension where Ryan couldn’t get to him, was a bad idea. Probably. If this man even was an officer of the law.

“Never! He’s gone so far away, and I won’t do a thing to help you. Kill me, fine, there are more where I come from. So many of us, and we’ll close every door if it’s the last thing we do.” The officer laughed at that and Dave cut it off with a couple of punches.

“Let me kill him,” Dave snarled and he leaned down into the man’s face. “Let me pull out his intestines and wear them around my neck.”

“No! He has to tell us where he sent Shane.” Ryan was breathing heavily now. There was no way this man was going to tell him. Shane was gone, and he was never going to see him again. This was it, the grand reveal and then nothing. Nothing. He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his heart, which seemed to be pounding in his head, in his throat, all around him. Ryan wanted his normal, every day life back. With Shane, obviously, because no day was normal without him.

“I won’t! I won’t! You fuckers, you’re so dumb, so very dumb indeed.” Ryan opened his eyes to look at the man, maybe say something else, but he was reaching for Dave. The flash of the knife registered a moment before it was plunged into Dave’s neck. Ryan screamed in anger.

“Very funny,” Dave said. He grabbed the officers arms and then pulled, literally ripping him into halves.

Ryan screamed again, louder this time, backing away, hands flying to cover his eyes. Like he would be able to ignore what had just happened, like he could block it out somehow. “What the hell was that for?”

“I don’t know, he tried to kill me twice, what did you think I’d do?” Dave asked. Ryan peaked through his fingers at Dave and then shook his head.

“This is insane.” Ryan took in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to sort things out in his mind. It was very difficult.

“I just watched someone tear someone apart,” TJ said in a soft voice. “I can’t decide if that’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen tonight or the most horrible. It’s kind of hard to know.”

“Now we’ll never find Shane!” Ryan couldn’t breathe, couldn’t focus, the world was tilting. “He might have said… he might have…” He gasped out and blinked his eyes at Dave.

“No he wouldn’t,” Dave said gently. He stepped over to Ryan and reached out, touching Ryan’s shoulder. “You know he wouldn’t. He was a fanatic. Fanatics don’t tell you what you want to know, and if he did tell us something, we’d have to guess if he was telling the truth. No, it’s better if we try to locate that realm ourselves.”

“I’m never going to see him again, am I?” Ryan gasped out, his eyes filling with tears. What a horrible, horrible thought. That was the most terrible thing to happen. Not the blood, or the guts ew, or the angry man screaming nothing. Shane being gone forever was the worst.

“You will. You will!” Dave reached out and pulled Ryan into a hug. It was a gross hug filled with blood and snot and tears, but Ryan leaned into it anyway. “Look, I need to help on this. There’s only one way to fix things, and I need to try it. I need to work hard on figuring out where they sent Shane so I can get him back, or at least get a unicorn back who can help.”

“You don’t even know how to find him,” Ryan mumbled into Dave’s shoulder. Parts of him were numb at the moment. Like his hands.

“I mean, there’s still magic in the world, so they haven’t succeeded yet,” Dave said and Ryan pulled away enough to look at Dave in the face.

“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

“Where do you think magic comes from?” Dave asked and Ryan shrugged. “Most of it comes from other realms. The magics gone soft, hard to hold onto, not nearly as tangible as it used to be. That’s how we know that the doorways are closing. If all the doors close, then our access to magic closes as well. Or at least, our access to most magic. Each realm has some magic, as long as there is life or death then there’s magic, but it’s not as strong as when each realm is connected.”

“You’re talking in circles and I don’t know what you mean,” Ryan said. His head hurt, he was overly tired, there had been too much blood in his recent moments and Shane was gone.

“It’s okay. I’ll explain it all to you more slowly later. More importantly, I’ll help you find Shane. Okay? It’s my fault he got wrapped up in all this anyway, it’s the least I can do to pay you back.”

“That’s right!” Ryan said, shaking Dave a couple of times, although he didn’t move him far enough away to leave the hug. “It *is* your fault!”

“I just said that, didn’t I?” Dave rolled his eyes. “Look, Shane was hurt, Shane was taken, and I owe you and him both a debt because of that. I don’t like being in debt, so I won’t leave your side until I can repay it.”

“You’re not going back to the hotel though, are you?” Ryan asked and Dave laughed.

“Hell no. I’ll meet you back in Cali.” Dave pat him lightly on the back. “But I *will* meet you there.”

“Look, what the hell are we even going to say to the police about what’s going on?” TJ asked. “I mean, there’s a guy ripped into two pieces on the ground over there.”

“You were kidnapped,” Dave said with a shrug. “All three of you. When you came to, he was dead and the other kidnapper was missing, as was Shane. Be loose on the details, mess some things up because you were knocked out, and be careful. I’ll stick around where no one can see me just in case the police turn out to be people who want to kill you. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“That’s very kind,” Ryan said with a roll of his eyes. He pulled away from Dave finally and sighed. “Okay. Okay. We can do this.” Glancing at TJ he swallowed. “But we have to find Shane.”

“Of course,” TJ said with a nod. “Unicorn or not, Shane is our friend.”

“Good.” Ryan pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I guess we’d better call the police then.”

“See you in Cali,” Dave said, heading over to the car. “I’ll be around.”

“Yeah.” Ryan looked at TJ, who nodded at him again.

“I’m really not looking forward to all the paperwork that’s going into this trip.” TJ sighed.

“Yeah. Me either.” Ryan paused and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “But we’re getting him back. We have to.”

“If it’s the last thing we do,” TJ agreed, and Ryan felt a little bolstered by that. A skeptic, a believer and a demon working together to get a unicorn back from an alternate realm. Almost sounded like the beginning to a joke. There was nothing funny about this though and Ryan sure wasn’t laughing.

He swiped open his phone and dialed 911, gritting his teeth. Ryan was going to get Shane back. He was determined and nothing stopped him when he was determined.

End Book One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry? I have almost the entire second book planned out, and I'll be writing it as soon as I can, then posting. I *shouldn't* be longer than month before I begin posting the next book but hopefully sooner. I promise that one won't end on a cliffhanger like this one does. Thank you all for reading! <3


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